After a firehose of a first six weeks back in the White House, President Trump delivered a boastful and partisan address to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
Coming in at just under 100 minutes, it was the longest such speech in modern history. And it saw a Democratic member of Congress be kicked out, several other Democrats walk out at various points and a Republican Party firmly and enthusiastically backing their president.
Here are six takeaways:
1. Trump boasted about what he's done so far, leaning into even the most controversial things.
"America is back," Trump proclaimed at the beginning of his speech. It was, ironically, a line also delivered by Joe Biden at the beginning of the Democrat's term in office following Trump's first four years.
The echo underscores that the country is deeply divided about what its values should be, about what America is and means and where it should go going forward.
Trump has attempted radical change, what he called Tuesday night a "commonsense revolution" that has seen "swift and unrelenting action."
That action has been spearheaded by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Trump gave Musk the spotlight and praised him, and Musk's moves have been cheered by many in the GOP base.
But those changes have been loudly and strongly opposed by many others, including independents. In the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, independents gave Trump just a 34% approval rating and Musk and DOGE a 34% favorability rating. Two-thirds said they think Trump is moving too fast to make changes to the federal government without considering the impact.
2. It was a very partisan speech, mostly appealing to MAGA supporters.
Americans are about split on the direction Trump is moving the country, the poll found, but this was not a speech that sought to reach across the aisle and expand those numbers. Quite the opposite.
He essentially dismissed Democrats. He referred to them as "these people" and "radical left lunatics" and even used his derisive "Pocahontas" nickname for Sen. Elizabeth Warren when talking about how long the war in Ukraine should continue. (In response, Warren said she was applauding U.S. aid for Ukraine, which Trump has now halted.)
He said Democrats would never vote for anything he'd ever do, so instead he mostly focused on the things MAGA likes — the anti-trans culture war, the targeting of pro-diversity programs, his effort to make English the official language of the country and changing the name of North America's highest point back to Mount McKinley. (The Alaska peak was renamed Denali, which means "high" or "tall," during the Obama years to reflect the preference of most Alaskans.)
"Our country will be woke no longer," Trump said.
During his address, Trump spoke more passionately about cracking down on illegal immigration than he did about the economy and prices, despite high prices being arguably what got him over the finish line in the 2024 election.
Presidents generally get too much credit and too much blame for the economy, and they have very few tools to make prices come down. But they do have a blunt tool that economists say is likely to make prices go up in short order — tariffs.
Trump delivered his speech on the day steep tariffs against Mexico and Canada took effect, and in the address, he defended them, describing tariffs as saving the "soul" of the country — another Biden line, but about something very different.
Experts, business owners and most Americans disagree. In the NPR poll, taken before Trump put the latest round of tariffs in place, 57% said they believed prices would go up in the next six months, and more people narrowly said Trump's approach on the economy would make things worse rather than better.
The subject got scant attention in Trump's speech, and he spent a lot of time blaming Biden. In fact, Trump mentioned Biden 13 times in the speech.
"Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control," Trump said. "The egg prices, out of control. And we're working hard to get it back down."
The recent increase in the price of eggs is largely due to a bird flu outbreak.
Every president tries to blame their predecessor for negative things that happen in their term, Republicans and Democrats alike. But at some point, they stick to the person actually in office.
3. There were lots of false and inaccurate things said.
There were so many things said that were false and inaccurate, they won't all fit in this space. NPR did an in-depth annotated fact check of more than 20 things that Trump said that can be found here.
But there were a handful of doozies, including:
— That DOGE had found hundreds of billions in fraud, but DOGE's numbers just don't add up. Trump even overstated the amount DOGE itself claims to have found.
— That lots of dead people over 120 years or older are getting Social Security payments. Even Trump's own head of the Social Security Administration says that's not true. These are people who don't have dates of death registered, not that they are receiving benefits. There have been improper payments made but it's only to about 1% of people, and they're to people who are alive.
— That the country brought in trillions of dollars from tariffs on China during Trump's first term. That's not correct. Tariffs were put on roughly $380 billion worth of goods, but that did not lead to a net-positive for the U.S. economy. In fact, experts said they may have, in the long term, reduced the gross domestic product of the country and certainly did not bring in trillions of dollars in revenue.
— That the country has spent $350 billion on the war in Ukraine. This is something Trump has continued to repeat. The total the country has spent is around $115 billion over the last three years — and not all of that has gone directly to Ukraine in aid. Some of it has been on building weapons domestically. The U.S. has spent more on military aid for Ukraine than any other single country, but, collectively, Europe has spent about $130 billion to $140 billion, a larger amount in military, humanitarian and financial aid.
4. There were asks of the Republican-led Congress that will tell us what Trump's legislative focus may be in the next year.
That included asking for:
- more money for deportations;
- another round of major tax cuts;
- enhanced police protections (there was no mention of Jan. 6 and the assault on police at the U.S. Capitol that day);
- a new crime bill;
- mandating the death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer (the death penalty varies by state);
- creating a "Golden Dome" missile defense system. (Israel has an Iron Dome that responds to rockets lobbed into its country, but it is much closer to adversaries like Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.)
5. It's Trump, so of course, there were some made-for-reality TV moments.
Trump is always one for theatrics, though this speech was lackluster compared to the pomp and melodramatic moments of past Trump addresses to Congress. Nevertheless, there was:
- the unveiling of a new executive action naming a wildlife refuge for a girl allegedly killed by immigrants in the U.S. without permanent legal status;
- the naming of a 13-year-old cancer survivor as an honorary Secret Service agent;
- the announcing of admission to West Point for a high school student;
- and the announcing of the capture of the alleged terrorist behind the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan.
6. Elissa Slotkin delivered an important address, one Democrats should pay attention to.
The senator from Michigan gave arguably the best response to an address to Congress since former Sen. Jim Webb's fiery response to George W. Bush in 2007 with the country embroiled in the Iraq War.
Many who have been in this slot — in both parties — have found themselves the subject of ridicule, but Slotkin was a presence. Standing in front of a wall of American flags, she drew on her biography as a former CIA officer, daughter of a Republican father and Democratic mother, and as someone who won in a state that Trump also did in 2024.
Slotkin noted that the "middle class is the engine of our country," said change should be made but not in a "reckless" way, warned Trump wants to give billionaires tax cuts at the expense of other things that are important to most people, went after Musk and "his gang of 20-year-olds" poking through sensitive personal information, and invoked Ronald Reagan.
"As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s," she said, noting the "spectacle" in the Oval Office between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "Trump would have lost us the Cold War."
Democrats have been struggling in these first six weeks of the Trump presidency with what to focus on and how to respond. Slotkin laid out a roadmap that could help Democrats decide what to focus on going forward.
Her poised and in-command speech also served as a contrast to the cane-waving Rep. Al Green's shouting responses to Trump that resulted in his being escorted from the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms.
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