WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump assessed his presidency as a ringing success Tuesday during his first address to a joint session of Congress since he reclaimed the White House in January.
“America is back,” an ebullient Trump said. “We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.”
But Trump arrived on Capitol Hill with a mixed record on the primary promises of his campaign: to combat illegal immigration, end inflation and stop the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. He also came on the heels of imposing tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and increasing rates on Chinese goods, in moves that most economic experts say are likely to increase prices for consumers.
The address, a mix of culture-war red meat, grievance-settling, name-calling and outright falsehoods, was the first time the full complement of lawmakers has heard directly from Trump since he embarked on a mission to expand the powers of his office at the expense of congressional prerogatives.
At an hour and forty minutes, it was the longest speech ever delivered by a president to Congress.
Trump has fired thousands of federal workers shut down programs authorized and funded by Congress and paused spending lawmakers approved to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s three-year-old invasion.
Yet those federal employees did not get a single mention Tuesday night, and Trump spent comparatively little time on Ukraine, even though it has dominated the White House’s agenda in recent days.
He tapped the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, to implement program and personnel cuts as a “special government employee” working with the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency. Musk, who sat in the House chamber Tuesday, saluted and bowed his head several times when Trump mentioned him. The president then claimed without evidence that he had found “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud” in the government.
Federal courts have stepped in to try to stop some of his executive actions, including an order that tried to redefine the 14th amendment’s grant of citizenship to anyone born in the U.S. In some cases, judges have ruled that the Trump administration fired workers illegally or failed to obey court orders.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration rewrote its guidance to federal agencies, following a court’s intervention, to say that the agencies, not the Office of Personnel Management, have the final say on whether employees are dismissed.
None of that has slowed Trump’s “shock and awe” effort to slash the scope and cost of the federal government, which continues as DOGE employees move from federal agency to federal agency looking for ways to cut staff, programs and contracts.
Republicans uniformly cheered Trump Tuesday night, and Democrats demonstrated that they are not as impressed with his policies and political record as he is.
Trump claimed that the November election had given him “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades” — an assertion that led Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, to shout at Trump until he was removed from the House chamber by the staff of the sergeant at arms.
Trump’s victory was the first popular-vote win for a Republican since 2004. But it was by a smaller margin than the Democratic popular-vote victories — including two against Trump — in the intervening four elections. Trump’s 312 electoral votes were a smaller tally than the numbers Democrat Barack Obama racked up in 2008 and 2012.
He lectured Democrats in the chamber for declining to applaud him.
“These people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements,” Trump said. “It’s very sad and it just shouldn’t be this way.”
Trump blamed persistently high prices on particular goods, including eggs, on former President Joe Biden and promised that he would unleash the American economy by promoting oil and gas and cutting taxes. He renewed his pledge to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime pay — even thought the budget passed by the House last month would only make room for extending tax cuts Trump enacted in his first term. Those extensions would cost $4.5 trillion over 10 years.
But even as he praised his economic plans, Trump acknowledged that his new tariffs — 25% apiece on the two nations that border the U.S. — could cause pain for Americans.
“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that,” he said. “It won’t be much.”
On social issues, Trump talked about efforts to prevent transgender girls from participating in girls sports — the subject of one of his early executive orders — and his push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion efforts from the federal government.
“Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad,” Trump said. “It’s gone, and we feel so much better for it.”
Five days after a tense Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump said his Ukrainian counterpart sent a letter Tuesday expressing gratitude for American support for Ukraine’s defense and pledging to sign a deal that would give the U.S. mineral rights in the European nation.
In the interim, Trump had unilaterally cut off funding for Ukraine, prodding Kyiv to negotiate a peace settlement with Russian invaders. In accusing Democrats of wanting to finance an endless Ukrainian defense, Trump singled out Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and repeated his derisive nickname for her: “Pocahontas.”
In recent weeks, Trump has appeared to try to turn American public opinion against Ukraine, including by calling Zelenskyy a dictator and falsely accusing Ukraine of starting the war. Russia’s invasion touched off three years of hostilities.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins, selected as the so-called designated survivor, did not join his fellow Cabinet members in the House chamber. During presidential speeches to a joint session of Congress, one member of the Cabinet stays away so that, in the event of a mass-casualty disaster, there would be someone in the line of succession to ascend to the presidency.
Four members of the Supreme Court — Chief Justice John Roberts and associate justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — attended, as did retired associate justice Anthony Kennedy.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., a freshman elected in a state that Trump won in November, delivered her party’s response to Trump.
“Read the fine print,” Slotkin said as she accused Trump of taking a “reckless” approach to the economy and making government more responsive to the people. “Do his plans actually help Americans get ahead? Not even close.”
