CARLISLE, Pa. — President Donald Trump — as fighting resumes in Iran and his administration’s request for $1.5 trillion in defense funding stalls in Washington — used a Wednesday appearance at a defense industry summit in central Pennsylvania mostly to boast about his perceived foreign and domestic achievements, from the oil business in Venezuela to the National Guard’s security work during Mardi Gras.
In a 53-minute speech that was set up as a roundtable conversation, Trump occasionally applauded the latest investments in Pennsylvania’s defense manufacturing and research, which was the focus of the two-day Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit organized by U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.).
He also acknowledged the setbacks in Iran and the widely recognized need for the country to more quickly build items like submarines and munitions.
But in his second stop in three weeks in Pennsylvania — and specifically in a Republican-held U.S. House district that is critical to his party keeping control in the midterm elections — Trump also weaved through a wide range of topics.
That included the prospect that Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro would defeat his preferred candidate in this year’s Pennsylvania governor’s race, Republican Treasurer Stacy Garrity.
“This guy Shapiro is totally overrated. I watched him the other night doing a speech, and he does not have what it takes,” Trump said in Carlisle. “Maybe he’ll win, and he’s expected to win, but I hear things about Stacy, and I’m hearing some poll numbers that are very good. But Shapiro is — he doesn’t have what it takes.”
Shapiro, who also attended the summit, held back from pointedly criticizing Trump’s foreign aggression during his panel, and he left the summit before the president’s appearance.
While most panelists and convention-goers praised the federal government’s focus on military investment, there was little discussion about specific developments abroad or controversies around Trump’s use of the armed forces.
Just this week, fighting in Iran resumed after a tentative ceasefire was reached and then fell apart. The U.S. Senate, which had previously voted — in a mostly symbolic gesture — to restrict Trump’s actions in Iran, has meanwhile stalled the president’s defense budget as Democrats attempt to exert more leverage to wind down the conflict.
“This war continues to be a costly blunder that has only made us worse off than before,” U.S. Sen. Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who served as a diplomat before entering Congress, said on social media this week as Trump continued the war effort.
The bombing campaign that began in late February has been both unpopular — a Fox News poll in June found 58% think the U.S. made the wrong decision by starting it — and costly, as gas prices have remained elevated and the nation’s arsenal of Tomahawk cruise missiles has depleted. It will take years to replenish the stockpile, according to an analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
McCormick, who has supported Trump’s efforts in Iran, said in opening the summit on Tuesday that the gathering came “in a moment as consequential as any moment in American history, and maybe in human history.”
“President Trump’s vision of peace through strength demands new players and new ways of doing business,” McCormick said. “Such radical new thinking has never been more needed in America’s history, in the history of our military. China, Iran, Russia, North Korea: They all share one objective — a weakened United States. And they’re actively working together toward that end.”
But Shapiro said he believed the administration’s antagonistic relationship with longtime allies is a risk to national security, though he did not specifically frame his comments around the wars in Iran or Ukraine.
“Candidly, I get a little bit concerned when our administration pokes their finger in the eye of our allies,” Shapiro said. “That undermines our ability to innovate, and it undermines our ability to be stronger with our national defense and to have a deterrence that is going to protect the American people and protect our interests abroad.”
McCormick, a U.S. Army veteran and former hedge fund CEO, organized the 1,300-person gathering to bring defense contractors and other companies together with government officials, military leaders, and research institutions.
As at a similar energy- and technology-focused event last year, McCormick used the event to highlight what he described as about $10 billion worth of investments in the state.
The list featured several ongoing Philadelphia efforts — including new ship orders at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard that McCormick valued at $1.5 billion, and a 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement to support submarine construction by Rhoads Industries and General Dynamics.
Day & Zimmermann, a Philadelphia-based and family-owned conglomerate that is one of the Army’s largest ammunition suppliers, also won a $2.3 billion contract to update, operate, and run the Hawthorne Army Depot in Nevada, according to McCormick.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. chief executive Jamie Dimon, who visited the Navy Yard on Wednesday ahead of the conference, also appeared in Carlisle to discuss $13 million in financing his company is providing to Rhoads’ ongoing project.
Not all of the announcements are new or immediate — such as a recent $84 million order of heavy dump trucks from Mack Defense, which is part of a five-year, $221.8 million contract signed last year and that Trump touted in Macungie last month.
Trump called the announcements “a colossal victory for this commonwealth and for the entire nation.”
“Pennsylvania workers will build the ships, submarines, trucks, weapons and industries that will ensure America remains the strongest and the most powerful nation in the history of the world,” Trump said.
In between diversions about the 2024 election, COVID-19, and claiming — as he has before during rallies in Pennsylvania — that affordability concerns are “fake,” Trump also addressed the focus of the gathering by stressing the need for a faster buildup of military equipment.
“We used to make a ship a day, and now we’re a laggard in that department,” he said while asking the submarine construction workers in Philadelphia to pick up the pace. “We do lots of great things, but we’re a laggard there.”
Like his rally in Lehigh County in June, Trump’s speech on Wednesday was located in a congressional district with one of the most competitive races — both in Pennsylvania and nationally — this year.
U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican, is seeking an eighth term in the 10th Congressional District, which covers all of Dauphin County and parts of York and Cumberland Counties. Perry narrowly fended off a challenge from former local television anchor Janelle Stelson in 2024 and is facing her again as Democrats invest more into the race.
As polls show Democrats have some broad momentum in the midterms, a new Pennsylvania poll released Wednesday found 39% of voters in the state approve and 58% disapprove of the president’s job performance.
The same poll from Quinnipiac University found 40% approve of McCormick’s job performance, 33% disapprove, and 28% had no opinion.
The event Wednesday and the energy-focused summit in Pittsburgh last July have spotlighted McCormick in rare, high-profile ways for a freshman senator. The former CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, has also developed a close alliance with Trump in ways that have elevated his political stature.
“Hopefully we’ll fix some of these societal problems,” Dimon, one of the country’s most powerful executives, said when McCormick asked him onstage what the next decade would look like. “And Secretary of Treasury Dimon will be happy to report to you, will be happy to report to President McCormick.”
McCormick has not publicly expressed an interest in running for president — though at least one widely expected 2028 contender was in attendance Wednesday at his invitation.
“Defense is critical to the future growth of this commonwealth,” Shapiro said, while praising McCormick in a bipartisan showing.
Shapiro spoke emphatically about bolstering the state’s role in the defense industrial base and said he is doing what he can to have the state benefit from defense-related jobs and a federal focus on national security.
Shapiro also appeared at the conference at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle earlier in the day. In a panel conversation there, he did not criticize Trump by name as he fully endorsed the summit’s goal of supercharging the defense industry and placing Pennsylvania at the center of the expansion.
Those jobs include about 2,200 at General Dynamics, a global corporation whose Pennsylvania employees work on everything from sonar and artificial intelligence to submarine defensive systems and electronic warfare, the company’s president, Danny Deep, said while sitting alongside Shapiro.
Deep referenced the governor’s 2024 visit to the General Dynamics munitions manufacturing plant in Scranton, when Shapiro and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed both empty artillery shells and agreements to work together. Because of the demand during Ukraine’s war with Russia, the company has ramped up its monthly munitions production from 14,000 to 50,000 — a move that Deep said was possible only with help from the state.
“That’s because of this public-private partnership, and that’s what makes Pennsylvania so special,” he said.
Michael Coulter, president and CEO of Hanwha Defense USA, likewise said on the panel that the cross-party and cross-government support is essential in the company’s continued expansion at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. The investments announced by McCormick on Wednesday included a federal government order of new ships that was valued at $1.5 billion and supporting more than 2,000 jobs in Philadelphia.
“We are foot-on-the-throttle to make shipbuilding great again,” Coulter said. “And Pennsylvania’s the heart of that.”
Staff writer Joseph N. DiStefano contributed to this article.
