The American Dream got a $400,000 check on Tuesday night. The Trump SBA’s Million Dollar Pitch Competition premiered on the White House YouTube channel, and the top prize went to Plas-Tech Tooling of Garner, Iowa, a family tool shop that Dean Sonquist and his wife started in a two-car garage in 1993 and now runs with his sons Andrew and Ryan.

“33 years ago, my wife and I took a chance in the American dream,” Sonquist told the judges. His shop machines the steel, aluminum and plastic parts that go into garbage trucks, cranes, concrete mixers and military vehicles, ships more than a million parts a year, employs more than 50 people and has grown nearly 500% in sales since 2020. “We’re the cheat code American manufacturers use when their supply chain breaks,” he said. “When parts from China, Mexico, India, or anywhere in the world don’t make it to an assembly line on time, manufacturers need another option, and they need it now.” The prize, the family said, will go to more automation that gives “skilled American workers the tools to compete and win.”

Host Dean Cain and judges Nicki Minaj, Grant Cardone and Joe Gebbia chose from five finalists picked out of thousands of applicants. Winton Machine of Suwanee, Georgia, took second and $250,000; Red River of Gillette, Wyoming, won $150,000; VetPowered of San Diego earned $125,000; and Compotech of Brewer, Maine, took $75,000. Clover funded the $1 million prize pool, and the SBA staged the show as part of its Freedom 250 celebration of America’s 250th.

President Trump made a special appearance, and he could not resist a nod to his old show. “You know, it’s interesting because with The Apprentice, I had a very good term that I used,” he said. “You’re fired.” Then he added, “So, now I’m doing a version of The Apprentice. It all goes around, right?” He called the finalists “successful,” “very well-spoken” and “very different in terms of the businesses.”

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler told the President that under his leadership new business starts are at “all-time record levels, over half a million new business starts every single month this year.” Trump pointed to the investment pouring into the country, saying it will reach $21 trillion. From a garage in rural Iowa to the White House, Main Street is winning again.