Trump Addresses U.S. Senators

by Sharon Rondeau

(Oct. 21, 2025) — At 12:30 p.m. EDT, President Trump addressed a group of Republican senators at a luncheon in the newly-renovated Rose Garden and touched on the new ballroom whose construction has begun which he said would be an improvement over the East Room, where formal events currently take place.

“You probably hear the sound of construction in the back,” he said, briefly holding his right ear. He joked that the sound normally reminds him of “money,” but that in this case, it is costing him money.

The luncheon, he said, was slated as “semi-private.”

At 12:34 he shifted to tariffs, which he said “equal national security,” although he backtracked to speaking about the eight conflicts he claims to have extinguished between nations, stating “a ninth” is on the horizon.

Of tariffs on other countries, he said, “It’s national security; it’s national defense.” He claimed previous presidents “didn’t know how to use them.”

He said the administration’s appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the tariffs he has imposed should prove successful following a lower court’s ruling that his actions are unconstitutional.

“We’re a wealthy nation again…and a nation that can start paying down our debt…without them [the tariffs], we’ve got a slog,” he said. “Other nations…they used tariffs against us for many years; that’s why we owe $37 trillion, and we had presidents that never fought it…”

He welcomed the senators to the Rose Garden, stating he and his team “brought it back to health,” including “wiring.” “It was unusable before,” he said, due to too much grass in which people’s feet would sink.

“The whole White House is being redone,” he added, then revealing he “paid for” replacing some flooring inside the White House with what this writer believes he said is “Breccia Paradiso marble.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Trump said, has “been my friend” over the last nine months. He also recognized Senate Maj. Whip John Barrasso and several others.

“We have everybody except one person here,” he said, “and you’ll never guess who that is…he’s an automatic ‘no.'”

Sen. Tim Scott, he said, was “good” “on the debate stage.” “I used him as a surrogate,” he said regarding last year’s presidential campaign. “He turned out to be absolutely one of my best surrogates.”

“You are a champion; you are a winner,” he addressed Scott directly. “You got to be my number one choice until something else happened.”

He did not elaborate on what that “something else” might have been.

“I have ten U.S. attorneys who are phenomenal…and the problem is they’re not ever going to be confirmed…,” he said, decrying the “blue slip” process by which senators of the opposing party from whom a U.S. attorney nominee emanates can object to the nomination, thereby preventing it.

He said the nominees “are going to have to leave office” after serving temporarily. “This goes for judges also,” he said.

They are “truly fantastic people” whose resumes will be marred by the senate’s failure to confirm them, Trump stressed.

He thanked senators for “working closely with me” in passing the Laken Riley Act; the Genius Act; and the Take It Down Act conceived by his wife Melania; and other legislation.

He then recounted the tragic 2015 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco at the hands of an illegal alien. A bill some senators wanted to pass in her name did not succeed, Trump recalled, stating, “I think it’s time that we pass it.”

The law would “keep the repeat offenders from coming in,” he said.

By the time he marks his first year back in office, he said, “$20 trillion in less than 12 months” of investment in the United States will have been pledged. “It’s going up fast. A lot of it’s because of tariffs…,” he said, and the corollary that manufacturers have decided it will be financially more advantageous to make their products domestically rather than overseas.

“Full tariffs” were “put on China” during his first term, he said, but abandoned by Joe Biden.

“I have a great relationship with President Xi…but it’s gotta be fair,” he expounded. “They were making $700 billion, and we were making nothing. “I expect a good deal with China.”

He railed at the “extreme” Democrat Party which he said is unjustifiably preventing the federal government from being fully funded, referring to the “shutdown” which commenced at 12:01 a.m. on October 1.

Changing topics to his policies on crime, “Four thousand murders” have taken place in Chicago in a “fairly short period of time,” he said. Washington, DC, where his administration began its efforts to reduce big-city crime, “is now a safe city.”

His remarks continued until approximately 1:12 p.m., when Thune took to the podium and spoke for less than two minutes. Coverage of the event then concluded.