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Trump Hosts a Rose Garden Dinner for Congressional Republicans, Sep. 2, 2026

September 2, 2026 · The White House · 0:47:42

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

What happened

President Donald Trump hosted Republican members of Congress — Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan among those he named from the podium — at a Rose Garden dinner on September 2, 2026, and used the evening to lay out his midterm campaign plan in full. “I’m going to take the final 30 days, maybe a little bit more than that, because it’s all about 35 races,” he said, asking members to send him the names of candidates who are “either tied or you’re winning by a little bit or you’re losing by a little bit,” and promising tele-town halls — “seven or eight of them, 10 of them maybe a night” — alongside travel to the close states.

The President named two stops himself: Alaska, to campaign for Senator Dan Sullivan against a same-name challenger he argued should be illegal, and Texas, for Attorney General Ken Paxton’s Senate bid — “he was the best attorney general in the country,” he said. He also gave the room an Iran update, thanking Secretary of War Pete Hegseth — “You did a good job last night in Iran, by the way” — and saying the United States now controls the Strait of Hormuz with “many boats going through that every day,” while putting Iran’s inflation at “close to 300%.”

Why it matters

This is the President’s midterm closing strategy stated on the record to the members whose seats it decides: a named number of target races, a named final-30-days window, and two named campaign stops. The November 3, 2026 results will test the plan race by race, and this chronicle’s scoreboard tracks the campaign claims made along the way.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Participates in a Rose Garden Dinner,” September 2, 2026 (official upload, embedded above). All characterizations as stated by the President at the dinner.