Highlights:
- Trump said he “inherited a mess” and restored American strength
- Claimed to have ended eight wars within 10 months
- Touted strict border enforcement and “reverse migration”
- Linked high housing costs to illegal immigration under Biden
- Asserted that all new job growth now benefits American-born citizens.
President Donald Trump on Wednesday (17) highlighted his administration's record on immigration, the economy, and global conflicts, claiming major successes during his second term, in a 19-minute year-end address to the nation.
“Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess, and I'm fixing it,” Trump said as he began his 19-minute special prime time address to the nation on Wednesday. Trump listed his administration's achievements since he took office for a second term in January this year, including securing the border, "reverse migration", bringing prices down, ending conflicts, using tariffs to bring billions of dollars into the country, enabling job creation and cracking down on immigration.
“I've restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years peace to the Middle East, and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead,” Trump said.
While Trump did not name the conflicts, he has throughout the year repeated his claim innumerable times that he ended wars between India and Pakistan, Thailand and Cambodia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, as well as Rwanda and the Congo.
He also touted his administration's success in dealing with migrants coming into the country from around the world, taking up American jobs, and driving up housing costs. Trump said that a major factor in driving up housing costs was the "colossal border invasion."
"We have never been invaded. This is the worst thing that, frankly, in my opinion, the worst thing that the Biden administration did to our country is the invasion at the border,” he said.
Trump said the Biden administration and its allies in Congress brought in “millions and millions” of migrants and gave them taxpayer-funded housing, while the rent and housing costs for Americans skyrocketed. He claimed that over 60 per cent of growth in the rental market came from foreign migrants.
“At the same time, illegal aliens stole American jobs and flooded emergency rooms, getting free health care and education paid for by you, the American taxpayer,” Trump said.
He claimed that for the first time in 50 years, the US is now seeing “reverse migration, as migrants go back home, leaving more housing and more jobs for Americans.” In the year before his election, all net creation of jobs was going to foreign migrants. “Since I took office, 100 per cent of all net job creation has gone to American-born citizens. Hundred per cent,” he said.
