ANALYSIS — The last time Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped her copy of his speech into pieces.
While the speaker emerita won’t be seated behind him during his return to the House chamber Tuesday night, fireworks are likely. Trump’s four appearances in the chamber during his first term were all memorable, as Republicans showered him with thunderous cheers and Democrats booed — if they didn’t skip the events in protest. But while Trump asked Congress for major legislation on hot-button issues in his past speeches, few such measures made it to his desk.
Trump’s most recent joint address took place on Feb. 4, 2020, a little over a month before COVID-19 altered the course of his first term and shut down much of the world. He began the night seeming to refuse to shake hands with Pelosi, the speaker of the then-Democratic House. As he spoke, she sat just over his left shoulder, shaking her head or waving an index finger dismissively at times. A Pelosi aide later told reporters the speaker tore Trump’s speech because it was “the courteous thing to do … considering the alternative.” Pelosi, via the aide, did not elaborate.
Tuesday night will feature friendlier faces behind Trump in Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. While the joint address is not a formal State of the Union, it will make for a similar political spectacle. Trump’s speechwriters have plenty of fodder to work with — after all, he speaks for extended amounts of time at the White House almost daily. For instance, he performed a nearly 65-minute session with reporters Wednesday during the first Cabinet meeting of his second term.
His previous addresses, as well as his many recent statements, may offer clues into what Trump will tell Republican and Democratic lawmakers Tuesday night. Here are several big-ticket issues he pitched to lawmakers in those earlier joint session speeches:
Immigration
Both Republicans and Democrats were eager to hear what Trump had to say about immigration and health care during his first joint address in February 2017.
But one of the biggest surprises came when Republican lawmakers remained seated or were noticeably slow to rise when Trump got into policy specifics.
“I believe that real and positive immigration reform is possible, as long as we focus on the following goals: to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation’s security and to restore respect for our laws,” the president said. “If we are guided by the well-being of American citizens, then I believe Republicans and Democrats can work together to achieve an outcome that has eluded our country for decades.”
Some GOP members who had been active in attempts to craft immigration legislation, including Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, remained seated when Trump talked about his intention for “proper vetting” of immigrants.
His 2019 State of the Union included a beefy immigration section, with the 45th president casting action on border security as a “moral issue.”
“Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country,” he said. “No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards. Meanwhile, working-class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration.”
That night, Trump noted that his administration had sent an immigration overhaul blueprint to Congress. It never gained much traction. But the issue of immigration and border security helped him win a second term last year, and he mentions it frequently. That is unlikely to change Tuesday night.
Of late, the administration appears to have shifted its rationale for the upcoming 25 percent tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada to cross-border drug flows rather than “unfair” trade practices by America’s neighbors.
“The drugs continue to pour into our country, killing hundreds of thousands of people. We’re losing substantially more than 100,000 people,” Trump said Thursday during a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. “They’re dead. The families are destroyed after that happens. So, it’s not just that, that’s the ultimate, but the families are absolutely destroyed. The drugs come in through Mexico.”
Health care
Much of Trump’s 2017 address reads like a collection of his social media posts stacked one on top of the other. Other sections of the speech were all but ripped from remarks he made on the 2016 campaign trail, including calling for a health care overhaul.
“Mandating every American to buy government-approved health insurance was never the right solution for our country. The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the cost of health insurance, and that is what we are going do,” Trump said at his first joint address.
“There’s no choice left. Remember when you were told that you could keep your doctor and keep your plan? We now know that all of those promises have been totally broken. Obamacare is collapsing, and we must act decisively to protect all Americans,” he added. “Action is not a choice, it is a necessity.”
But several months later, Arizona Republican John McCain entered the Senate chamber to offer a thumbs-down, dooming the GOP effort that aimed to dismantle the Obama-era health care law. McCain died a month later.
When Trump returned to the House chamber for his second joint address, an official State of the Union speech delivered on Jan. 30, 2018, he mentioned health care policy just two times. Neither instance included a request for congressional action.
Much of his 2020 State of the Union address sounded like a campaign rally — he was seeking reelection to a second term, after all — and culminated with Pelosi’s theatrics. The address that angered her included his melding of two hot-button campaign issues: health care and immigration.
“If forcing American taxpayers to provide unlimited free health care to illegal aliens sounds fair to you, then stand with the radical left,” Trump said in his address. “But if you believe that we should defend American patients and American seniors, then stand with me and pass legislation to prohibit free government health care for illegal aliens.”
Such a measure never reached his desk.
Taxes and tariffs
While Trump and his first-term team struggled to push those items through Congress, lawmakers did get a tax measure to his desk, which he signed into law late in his first year.
“Right now, American companies are taxed at one of the highest rates anywhere in the world. My economic team is developing historic tax reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone,” he said in the House chamber in February 2017 to applause from mostly Republican members. “It will be a big, big cut.”
“At the same time, we will provide massive tax relief for the middle class. We must create a level playing field for American companies and our workers. We have to do it,” he added. “Currently, when we ship products out of America, many other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes.”
Trump and congressional Republicans, who now hold a governing trifecta in Washington, are working on legislation that could extend those tax provisions, though they have yet to agree on whether that would be a permanent or temporary extension. GOP lawmakers will be listening Tuesday to see if the president digs in further on his calls for a permanent extension.
Early in his second term, Trump has already returned to his tariffs fight. Several times since coming back to power, he has mused about previously planning to implement reciprocal tariffs on most goods from all other countries before the COVID-19 pandemic forced him to shelve the idea.
Expect plenty of tariff talk Tuesday night.
“I say often it’s my favorite word in the dictionary, but I always preface it by saying now, because I got into a lot of trouble with the fake news, where they say, ‘That’s not good.’ So I say, ‘God, love, family, wife, they’re all my favorite words’ — but tariff is about No. 4 or 5 on the list,” Trump quipped during Thursday’s joint news conference. “But I will tell you it’s going to make our country rich, and it’s going to stop us from being a laughing stock all over the world.”
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