Trump at CPAC: Fort Knox Trip with Musk, “Fraudsters Sent Packing,” Nobel Prize Call, and Carter Joke

President Trump’s CPAC 2025 address was a tour de force that combined policy substance with the entertainment that had made his rally speeches legendary. He announced he would visit Fort Knox with Elon Musk “because we want to see if the gold is still there,” declared that “the fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep state bureaucrats are being sent packing,” and invoked the “resounding mandate for dramatic change” voters had delivered. Ambassador Elise Stefanik called for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. And Trump delivered what became the speech’s most viral moment: his observation that “Jimmy Carter passed away recently, and he passed away a happy man — because Biden was the worst president in history.”

Fort Knox with Elon Musk

Trump expanded on his previously announced Fort Knox visit by revealing that Musk would accompany him.

“We are also going to Fort Knox. I’m going to go with Elon,” Trump told the CPAC crowd. “And would anybody like to join us? Because we want to see if the gold is still there. We want to see.”

He paused for dramatic effect: “Wouldn’t that be terrible? We open up…”

The announcement that Musk would participate transformed the Fort Knox visit from a presidential inspection into a DOGE-adjacent audit event. Musk’s involvement suggested that the visit would not be purely ceremonial but would include the kind of data-driven verification that characterized DOGE’s approach to government oversight. If DOGE was auditing Treasury’s payment systems and finding billions in fraud, it was logical for Musk to extend that scrutiny to the government’s physical gold reserves.

The crowd’s enthusiastic response reflected a public that had grown increasingly skeptical of government assurances about the state of national assets. Fort Knox had not been independently audited in over seven decades, and the combination of Trump’s showmanship and Musk’s analytical rigor promised to produce either a reassuring confirmation or a historic revelation.

”Fraudsters Sent Packing”

Trump then delivered a passage that functioned as the administration’s mission statement in its most compressed form.

“The fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep state bureaucrats are being sent packing,” Trump said. “The illegal alien criminals are being sent home. We’re draining the swamp, and we’re restoring government by the people, for the people.”

He followed with a historical framing that cast the previous era as an occupation that had ended. “For years, Washington was controlled by a sinister group of radical left Marxists, warmongers, and corrupt special interests who drained our wealth, attacked our liberties, obliterated our borders, and sucked our country dry,” Trump said. “Not any longer.”

The language was muscular and declarative. Each category of villain — fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, bureaucrats — was being dispatched. Each category of American victim — workers whose jobs were stolen, whose wages were robbed, whose way of life was destroyed — was being rescued. The speech was structured as a liberation narrative, with Trump’s return to office as the turning point.

”A Resounding Mandate for Dramatic Change”

Trump connected the agenda to the democratic legitimacy of his election victory.

“The people have given us a resounding mandate for dramatic change in Washington, and we are going to deliver it,” Trump said. “We’re going to use it, and we’re going to make America great again by using it.”

The emphasis on “using” the mandate was a response to those who argued the administration was moving too fast or too aggressively. Trump’s counter was that voters had elected him specifically to do what he was doing, and that failing to use the mandate aggressively would be a betrayal of the voters who delivered it.

He continued with the economic populism that had defined his coalition. “We’re rescuing the Americans whose jobs have been stolen, whose wages have been robbed, and whose way of life has been absolutely destroyed,” Trump said. “And under the Trump administration, our country will not be turned into a dumping ground. We’re not going to do it.”

Trump previewed the tariff revenue that would fund the transformation: “We’re going to have so much money coming in from tariffs.”

Stefanik: Nobel Peace Prize for Trump

Ambassador Elise Stefanik, Trump’s UN Ambassador, made a formal call for the president to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

“There is no question that President Trump is the president of peace and deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for the historic achievements of his first term alone,” Stefanik said.

The call was based on Trump’s first-term record, which included the Abraham Accords normalizing relations between Israel and multiple Arab states, the lack of new military conflicts during his presidency, and the diplomatic engagement with North Korea that had produced a freeze in nuclear and missile testing. Combined with the second term’s Gaza ceasefire and the Ukraine peace negotiations, Stefanik argued the case for the prize was overwhelming.

The Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to Barack Obama in 2009 based largely on aspirational rhetoric rather than concrete achievements, a decision that even Obama himself acknowledged was premature. Stefanik’s argument — that Trump deserved the prize “for the historic achievements of his first term alone,” before even counting the second term’s diplomatic progress — was a pointed contrast.

The Jimmy Carter Joke

Trump saved the speech’s most memorable line for his extended riff on Joe Biden.

After describing Biden’s various shortcomings in characteristically vivid terms, Trump arrived at the punchline that would dominate the next news cycle.

“Jimmy Carter passed away recently, and he passed away a happy man,” Trump said, pausing for effect. “He was a happy man when he passed away because he said that it’s not even close. Joe was the worst.”

The joke worked on multiple levels. It invoked the long-standing historical debate about which president was the worst in American history. Carter had held that distinction in many Republican assessments for decades. Biden’s presidency, in Trump’s telling, had been so catastrophic that it had relieved Carter of the burden — allowing the 39th president to die content in the knowledge that someone had finally performed worse.

The crowd erupted, and Trump pressed the advantage. “Believe me, I have to clean up the mess. I’m cleaning up the mess, and it is a mess — on the border, with inflation. Every single thing he touched turned to—” Trump paused before delivering the vulgarity that CPAC crowds expected and rewarded.

The Carter joke became one of the most-shared clips from the entire CPAC event. Its effectiveness lay in its simplicity: everyone knew the premise (Carter was considered a failed president), the setup was unexpected (Carter died happy), and the punchline was devastating (because someone finally made him look good by comparison).

Key Takeaways

• Trump announced he would visit Fort Knox with Elon Musk “because we want to see if the gold is still there,” turning the inspection into a DOGE-adjacent audit event.
• He declared “the fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep state bureaucrats are being sent packing” and invoked the “resounding mandate for dramatic change” voters had delivered.
• Ambassador Elise Stefanik called for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize “for the historic achievements of his first term alone.”
• Trump delivered the viral line: “Jimmy Carter passed away a happy man — because Biden was the worst president in history.”
• He pledged the U.S. “will not be turned into a dumping ground” and previewed “so much money coming in from tariffs.”