Donald Trump on Tuesday declared that his administration was “just getting started”, boasting in a marathon address to Congress that his efforts to slash the size of the federal workforce, reorient US foreign policy and escalate a risky trade war marked the beginning of the “most thrilling days in the history of our country” as Democratic lawmakers protested with placards that read “lies” and “false”.
“America is back,” Trump declared, opening his primetime speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term and the longest in American history. Republicans broke into a boisterous chant of “USA”.
Throughout the address, which lasted about one hour and 40 minutes, a jocular Trump touted his administration’s “swift and unrelenting action” and praised the work of his billionaire adviser Elon Musk, who has led his administration’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government through his so-called “department of government efficiency”. “Thank you, Elon,” Trump said, gesturing to Musk, who was seated in the house gallery overlooking the chamber where Democrats waved paddles that read “Musk steals”.
Trump seized the high-profile moment to defend his administration’s action during the first weeks of his return to power, including, according to his tally, nearly 100 executive orders and more than 400 executive actions.
“The people elected me to do the job, and I am doing it,” he said, making no mention of the legal challenges that have stalled many of his actions and deepening fears that his trade war will plunge the country into economic turmoil.
Trump also expanded on his “America first” foreign policy vision, just days after a dramatic Oval Office meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spiraled out of control as Trump and JD Vance berated him over a perceived lack of respect. During his remarks, Trump recited from a letter Zelenskyy had shared earlier in the day, indicating that he was ready to return to the negotiating table to end Russia’s three-year war. The US had simultaneously received “strong signals” from Russia that Moscow was “ready for peace”, Trump said. “Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”
Elsewhere, Trump envisioned the US expanding. He declared that his administration was in the process of “reclaiming the Panama canal” and repeated his threat to take control of Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”
With performative flair, Trump offered a sampling of initiatives he said Musk’s team had identified as wasteful, among them the creation of an Arab Sesame Street, “making mice transgender” and promoting LGBTQ+ rights in Lesotho, the African country he said “nobody has ever heard of”.
“This is real,” he exclaimed, drawing laughs from half of the chamber. Trump claimed that Musk’s cost-cutting efforts had identified “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud”. But his estimate vastly overstated the savings Doge says it has generated, a figure which itself is based on accounting that multiple reports have found is riddled with errors and distortions.
Early in the night, as Trump bragged about the size of his electoral college and popular vote victory – “a map that reads almost completely red for Republican” – Democrats heckled and booed, prompting the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to bang his gavel and demand decorum. “You don’t have a mandate,” shouted the Texas representative, Al Green. When the congressman, who last month filed articles of impeachment against Trump, refused to be seated, the speaker ordered him removed from the chamber.
Trump claimed a mandate for “bold and profound change”, though at 1.5 points his winning margin in the popular vote was historically narrow and three points less than Joe Biden’s four years earlier.
Trump’s address to Congress came just hours after he launched a trade war against three top trading partners that sent financial markets spiraling and raised fresh concerns of inflation. Just after midnight on Tuesday, the US slapped 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and doubled to 20% the levy he imposed on Chinese products last month. Trump vowed a tit-for-tat retaliation – “whatever they tariff us, we tariff them” – and insisted the new levies would grow the economy and create jobs, even as economists warned the polices could harm consumers and make inflation worse.
“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again,” Trump said, adding a caveat: “There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”
New tariffs would take effect on 2 April, Trump said, one day later than he preferred to ensure the announcement wasn’t mistaken for an April Fools joke. However, he conceded that there may be “a little bit of an adjustment period”.
He blamed the soaring price of eggs on his predecessor’s energy policies while pledging his “National ENERGY Emergency” would help usher in a new era of domestic drilling.
In accordance with tradition, Trump’s arrival in the chamber was announced by the sergeant at arms. As he walked to the dais, Trump appeared to revel in the cacophonous applause of congressional Republicans, who have declined to rein in the president even as he threatens their authority as an independent branch of government.
Seated behind the president, Vance and Johnson could barely contain their glee, as they stood to applaud Trump’s every promise, boast and threat.
Past presidents have used the first major speech as an opportunity to reach across party lines and offer areas of common ground. Trump did the opposite. He taunted his political foes, blaming his predecessor for the price of eggs and claiming his victory ushered in a wave of tech investments that wouldn’t have happened if Kamala Harris had won the election. At one point he called Joe Biden the “worst president in American history”, drawing applause from Republicans.
“Why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America,” Trump chided stone-faced Democrats. At least a handful of Democrats walked out of the speech early.
Trump celebrated his clampdown on the US immigration and asylum system and called on the Republican-led Congress to deliver additional federal funding to expand his border crackdown and extend his first-term tax cuts. Some Democrats held signs that said “Save Medicaid” to highlight the social safety net programs that could be at risk under a Republican budget blueprint to deliver Trump’s sprawling agenda.
The president also ticked through many of his controversial actions, from renaming the Gulf of Mexico to making English the country’s official language, and banning trans women from women’s sports. “Our country will be woke no longer,” he declared.
The speech was riddled with falsehoods and misleading claims, including a riff about millions of centenarians aged “110 to 119” receiving social security benefits.
“We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby,” he quipped, referencing Robert F Kennedy Jr, his recently installed secretary of health and human services, who leads the vaccine-skeptical “Make America healthy again” movement.
The 15 guests who joined Melania Trump, the first lady, to watch the address included the widow and daughter of Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump survived an assassination attempt, as well as Marc Fogel, the American teacher Trump helped free from a Russian prison last month. Other guests were intended to highlight the administration’s policies, including family members of Americans killed by men in the US without legal status, and anti-trans advocates.
There were poignant moments. Trump paused his remarks to sign an executive order renaming a wildlife refuge near Houston for an animal-loving 12-year-old girl who prosecutors say was killed by two Venezuelan men in the country illegally. Turning to another guest, 13-year-old Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018, Trump directed his Secret Service director to make him an honorary US Secret Service agent.
The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, had encouraged his members to attend the address in order to demonstrate a “strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber”. Many did attend, bringing fired federal workers and Americans who rely on social safety net programs threatened by Republicans’ budget proposal.
But several Democrats chose to skip the event, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who instead shared her live reactions to the speech on the social media platform BlueSky. Before the address, several congressional Democrats and elected officials joined a virtual pre-buttal, “Calling BS”, to slam the Trump administration’s actions so far.
“I don’t need to legitimize his lies by being in the room,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the livestream, adding that Democrats needed to make clear that the president was “transparently and brazenly lying to the American people”.
Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said he planned to attend Trump’s speech as a way to show solidarity with Americans who were “rejecting Donald Trump’s hateful vising for our country”.
Following Trump’s address, the newly elected Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin of the battleground state Michigan delivered her party’s formal rebuttal. “We’ve gone periods of political instability before,” she said. “And ultimately, we’ve chosen to keep changing this country for the better.”
