April 30 (UPI) -- Donald Trump and his Cabinet lauded successes during the president's first 100 days in office, including reducing illegal border crossings by 99.9%.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military is experiencing a surge in enlistments and retention of active military personnel during the Wednesday Cabinet meeting.
"What we have seen since your election and inauguration is nothing short of a recruiting renaissance," Hegseth said. "It's been decades since we have seen this kind of recruiting."
He said the men and women of the military services want to serve under Trump after leaving in droves during the Biden administration.
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Changes in Defense Department priorities are enabling the U.S. military to grow stronger instead of focusing efforts and spending on issues that have nothing to do with national security and defense, such as climate change, Hegseth said.
"We're making the military great again," he added.
Investments in U.S. industries rising
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, likewise, said the nation's technology industry is poised for exponential growth.
"We've never seen anything like the companies committed to building in America," Lutnick said.
"Technology companies have committed over $2.5 trillion to build in America," and sovereign countries want to invest more than $3 trillion in America due to Trump's tariff policies, he added.
He said pharmaceutical companies, automakers and other industries are returning to the United States.
"We're going to train the workforce to build America," Lutnick said.
Trump and his Cabinet met a day after the release of a gross domestic product report that indicates a 0.3% contraction of the U.S. economy during the first three months of 2025.
Trump blamed the Biden administration for the contraction and said tariffs have nothing to do with recent stock market volatility.
"This is [President Joe] Biden's stock market, not Trump's," Trump said in a Truth Social post made prior to the Wednesday morning Cabinet meeting. "I didn't take over until January 20th."
He said tariffs will "soon start kicking in" and "companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers."
The nation's economy "will boom," but "we have to get rid of the Biden 'overhang,'" Trump added.
The Biden administration created an "economic disaster" that has been a drag on economic growth, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday in a news release.
She said Trump's policies are spurring economic improvement.
"Robust core GDP, the highest gross domestic investment in four years, job growth and trillions of dollars in new investments secured by President Trump are fueling an economic boom and setting the stage for unprecedented growth," Leavitt said Wednesday.
Trump is scheduled to host business leaders for Nvidia, GE Aerospace and others at 4 p.m. EDT during a press event lauding corporate "investing in America."
Tax cuts encouraged
The president also wants Congress to pass "one big, beautiful bill" that would deliver the "largest tax cuts in history" for the American people, according to a White House news release.
The proposed measure would exempt tips, overtime pay and seniors' Social Security benefits from federal taxation and increase real wages by an average of $3,300 and take-home pay by $5,000 annually, the White House says.
The nation's GDP also would grow by between 3.3% and 3.8% and save 4.1 million jobs, according to the White House newsroom.
Trump also said Tesla founder and CEO Musk is welcome to continue working with his administration after the expiration of his brief term as the director of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Musk is not paid for his work as the DOGE director, which has drawn praise and condemnation from many for his efforts to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
Musk is a "special government employee" who draws no salary and only has a 130-day term in his role, NPR reported.
