Scott Bessent Breaks Down How Trump's Economy Works for the Everyday American - 09/09/26

Good evening. It's wonderful to be here in the great state of Texas and it's a privilege, a privilege to stand among tens of thousands of patriots who believe as deeply as I do in the future of America under its 47th president. We meet tonight at a defining moment in the history of our republic. 250 years ago, our founders could scarcely have imagined the country their courage would make possible. They would have marveled at the economy we have built and the technologies we have invented. They would have been amazed at the prosperity we have unleashed and the power we have attained. But they would have recognized the spirit that runs through us still. The conviction that a free people answer to no power but their own. That spirit transformed a small republic on the edge of a continent into the envy of the world. And tonight it summons us to honor the inheritance of our first 250 years by meeting the obligations of the next. Our obligation begins by making this country work again for the very people who sustain it. We know how hard you work every day for your families and I can tell you no one works harder for you. No one fights harder for you and no president has asked his team and of himself to put American families back at the center of the American economy than Donald J. Trump. In 15 short months, we've gone from auto pen to overdrive. From a president who couldn't stay awake to a president who refuses to sleep. Across this country, President Trump's policies are reaching the very people they were designed to serve. He signed the largest tax cuts in history. Rebalanced trade in favor of our working families. Reclaimed our position as the world's energy superpower. And where his predecessors created debt and dependency, this president is creating assets and expanding ownerships through Trump accounts. The most transformative program for young people since the G.I. Bill. As it turns out, Washington wasn't incapable of working for the American people. All we needed was a new president. Under this president, more Americans are working than ever before. The private sector has added over a million jobs. U.S. manufacturing is roaring back at its fastest pace in years. Companies are investing trillions to build and expand across the United States. And just like in President Trump's first term, the bottom 25% of earners are seeing the biggest wage increases. President Trump has turned this country around once before, and he's doing it again. The president's plan was never just a tax cut. Never just a tax cut. His economic program is bolstered by trade deals and deregulation. And tonight, a new industrial super cycle is moving from investment into production. Blueprints to paychecks. Everything from GDP to factory payrolls is firing up. And to appreciate the magnitude of these gains, let me remind you of the years of failure that they followed. Under Joe Biden, Democrats brought this country to the brink of ruin. They opened our borders and shuttered our factories. They imposed one set of rules on American workers while allowing our competitors to play by another. Inflation soared to a 40-year high. Deportations of dangerous criminals sank to record lows. Domestic energy became harder to produce. Everyday life became more expensive, and businesses on Main Street became burdened with red tape and overregulation. What a difference a new president can make. But tonight, let's not be lulled into thinking our work is over. In fact, it's only just begun. The radical left is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century. To import the misery of failed workers' paradises like the Soviet bloc, Caracas, and Havana. To repackage the discredited ideals of the past as the moral cause of the future. Their big government giveaways would end as they always do, always do, in food shortages, deadly delays in medical care, and squalid housing. Exhibit A is Sparkle Beach, Kinns, California, from which a taxpayer flees every two and a half minutes. And I hear they're all coming to Texas. And to pay for it all, they take from people what they've earned, their businesses, their income, and their incentive to work hard and innovate. Their version of equality would drag everyone down instead of lifting everyone up. And so these big government Democrats inflame the forces of envy and division to consolidate their control. They are now the center of gravity for a radical party. If given power, the first thing they'll do is dismantle the gains we've made under President Trump. They'll claim to tax the rich while they raid the pockets of the middle class. They'll defund law enforcement, undermine election integrity, slice open our borders, and let criminals roam free. That is what the extreme left would do with power. The question before us now is whether we will give it to them. So America, it's time for choosing. The spirit that built this nation now asks something of us. This summer, we celebrated what our founders began. This fall, we will decide faithfully how we preserve it. For the most fitting way to honor those who founded this great nation is to meet the challenges of our own time with the same resolve they brought to theirs. Remember, the American story is not self-sustaining. It requires each generation to decide anew whether its next chapter will be written by those who believe in this country or those who apologize for it. Tonight, I can see where the Republican Party and the American people stand. I can see that you know what's at stake. I see before me a movement that has never been more united or more determined to ensure we don't go back to the unfair trade or unfettered immigration, to a politics that places migrants who break our laws before citizens who abide by them, to a government that settles for stagnation, to a global order that prioritizes cheap labor over a strong American workforce. We must never go back to a nation that surrenders the freedom our founders sought to secure only to import socialism that free people fought to escape. We've come a long way under President Trump. Now it falls on us to show up when it matters the most to continue this fight. So tonight, let the rest of this country look to Texas as it so often has. Let them draw hope that the movement behind our great comeback intends to keep going and let them see exactly what promise remains in America when patriots like you all in this arena tonight refuse to give it up. Thank you all. God bless you. God bless Donald J. Trump. And God bless the United States of America.