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Trump and the First Lady Participate in the Military Family Picnic, July 4, 2025

July 4, 2025 · The White House · 0:32:17

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump joined military families for the annual Military Family Picnic on the South Lawn on July 4, 2025, carried on the White House channel. In his remarks the President said recruiting had reversed: a year earlier “nobody wanted to join our military. They didn’t want to join our police, our firefighters… And now, as you probably know, the enlistment is at an all-time record. We’re packed. We’re full,” as he stated it.

He reported his account of the recent NATO summit: “They’ve agreed to put up over a trillion dollars a year. They went from less than 2 percent to 5 percent, and nobody thought that was possible,” and said the allied leaders had told him “one year ago, your country was dead. And now, you have the hottest country anywhere in the world.” He closed by wishing the families a happy Independence Day — “This is going to be something special. There’s spirit in this country. We haven’t seen anything like it in many, many years — in decades” — ahead of the evening fireworks.

Why it matters

The picnic remarks are the President’s Independence Day statement of his two standing strength claims — recruiting at a record and the alliance at 5 percent — made to the military families those claims most directly concern, on the day the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed.

Scoreboard watch

This picnic is a scoreboard reference point: the President’s July 4, 2025 statements that enlistment was at an all-time record and that NATO members had moved from under 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP on defense, each as stated by the President, to be checked against the published recruiting and alliance figures.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump and the First Lady Participate in the Military Family Picnic, July 04, 2025” (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President.