Donald Trump Says U.S. Has Gone ‘from Worst to Best’ Under His Watch While Blaming Democrats for Country’s Issues

President Donald Trump addressed the nation in a boastful speech recapping his first year back in office.

Trump, 79, delivered remarks from the White House the evening of Wednesday, Dec. 17, in a live primetime address, detailing some of what he claimed were his administration’s biggest accomplishments while outlining his agenda for 2026.

During the speech, Trump claimed that before he began his second term, the country was being “laughed at from all over the world, but they’re not laughing anymore.”

He went on to claim his administration has “brought more positive change to Washington than any administration in American history” during the past 11 months.

“In other words, in a few short months, we went from worst to best. We’re deporting criminals, restoring safety to our most dangerous cities,” Trump later said, before claiming that Washington, D.C. is “at levels of safety that we’ve never seen before” after National Guard troops were deployed there over the summer.

When he spoke about health care, Trump touted his idea that Americans should “buy their own health insurance, which will give far better benefits at much lower cost.”

He referred to the Affordable Care Act as the “Unaffordable Care Act,” and claimed it was “created to make insurance companies rich.”

“It was bad health care at much too higher cost and you see that now in the steep increase in premiums being demanded by the Democrats and they are demanding those increases and it’s their fault. It is not the Republicans’ fault,” Trump said. “It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the Unaffordable Care Act, and everybody knew it.”

Hours before Trump’s speech, the House of Representatives passed a health care bill that did not extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits. Four Republican members joined a Democratic discharge petition that will force a vote on extending the tax credits for three years.

Trump also announced a $1,776 “warrior dividend” that 1.45 million military service members will receive before Christmas.

“One year ago our country was dead. We were absolutely dead. Our country was ready to fail, totally failed. Now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world, and that’s said by every single leader that I’ve spoken to over the last 5 months,” Trump later said, before claiming Americans will “see the results of the largest tax cuts” in history that were included in the Big, Beautiful Bill.

Trump delivered his speech amid economic uncertainties. New government data released hours before the speech showed employers only added 64,000 jobs in November and unemployment grew to 4.6%, the highest level since September 2021, according to CBS News. Trump has also said inflation is coming down, but data from September shows it has been slowly increasing since a decrease in April.

The president announced his speech on Tuesday, Dec. 16, leaving television networks scrambling. All major broadcast outlets — including ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC — cleared their 9 p.m. ET primetime schedules to air the live address.

CBS put its three-hour Survivor season 49 finale on hold to accommodate for the president’s speech. While the episode began at 8 p.m. ET, the network said it would resume the episode “where it left off immediately following the president’s address for Eastern and Central Time Zone viewers.”

At FOX, the season finale of Rob Lowe’s The Floor game show was set to air from 8 to 10 p.m. ET, but was interrupted for Trump’s speech and expected to continue once his remarks ended, as reported by Deadline.

As for ABC and NBC, both networks had scheduled holiday programming for the evening, with ABC broadcasting iHeartRadio Jingle Ball from 8 to 10 p.m. ET and NBC broadcasting Christmas in Nashville with Trisha Yearwood at 9 p.m. ET.

ABC halted their concert special for the speech and planned to resume once Trump finished his remarks, while NBC broadcast a special covering Trump’s address before Christmas in Nashville.

Trump’s speech notably comes as the deadline to release the Epstein files fast approaches. The Department of Justice must release the files by Friday, Dec. 19, which marks 30 days since the president signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act.

The department could have released the files at any time before the deadline, but has not shared anything since the act was signed into law by Trump on Nov. 19. The bipartisan bill called on the DOJ to publish “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein.”

While Trump pushed back against the files’ release for months, he appeared to change course in November, telling Republicans to “vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide, and it’s time to move on from this Democrat Hoax,” in a Truth Social post days before Congress voted on the bill.

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The day before the president delivered his remarks on Wednesday night, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters he would be touting the administration’s “historic accomplishments” since January 2025.

“It’s going to be a really good speech. I was just in the Oval Office with the president discussing it,” she said on Tuesday, per ABC News. “He’s going to talk a lot about the accomplishments over the past 11 months, all that he’s done to bring our country back to greatness and all he continues to plan to do to continue delivering for the American people over the next three years.”