President Trump on Tuesday declared that Americans are regaining their confidence and the American dream is now “unstoppable” in an address before a joint session of Congress that was marked by interruptions from Democrats.
“America’s momentum is back. Our spirit is back. Our pride is back. Our confidence is back,” Mr. Trump said in his first address to Congress since returning to office six weeks ago.
“The American Dream is surging – bigger and better than ever before. The American Dream is unstoppable and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again,” he said.
Democrats wasted no time heckling the president, unleashing a chorus of boos as Mr. Trump began his remarks. They interrupted his speech, forcing Mr. Trump to pause from delivering remarks for a few minutes.
“You have no mandate,” Rep. Al Green, Texas Democrat, shouted at the president as his speech got underway. Other Democrats held up signs saying “false” or “lie after lie.”
At one point, Mr. Green became so disruptive that House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, ordered him removed from the chamber.
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Mr. Trump admonished the Democrats for their hyperpartisanship.
“There is nothing I could say to make the Democrats happy. Nothing,” he said. “It’s very sad and it shouldn’t be that way.”
In a record-length speech that lasted nearly an hour and 40 minutes, Mr. Trump immediately zeroed in on the economy amid criticism from Democrats that he hasn’t done enough to reduce the cost of household goods, an issue he said he’d tackle on his first day in office.
His remarks came the same day he unleashed stiff tariffs on imports from America’s closest trading partners. He slapped a 25% tax on goods from Canada and Mexico that went into effect earlier Tuesday, a move he said was necessary to secure greater cooperation on the border and to combat illicit fentanyl trafficking. However, it triggered immediate retaliation and fears of a global trade war. On Monday he raised tariffs on goods from China to 20%.
“Whenever they tariff us, we tariff them,” Mr. Trump said. “Whatever they tax us, we tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”
Mr. Trump acknowledged that prices were still too high but put the blame squarely on his successor, President Biden. He said it takes time to reduce prices, pointing to sky-high prices of eggs, which soared after a bird flu outbreak resulted in the death of thousands of chickens.
SEE ALSO: Democratic Rep. Al Green removed from House chamber after interrupting Trump’s address
“Among my very highest priorities is to rescue the economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families,” Mr. Trump said. “As you know, we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare. Their policies drove up energy prices, pushed up the cost of groceries and drove the necessities of life out of reach for many Americans,” he said.
The president said lowering the cost of energy will bring down prices. Mr. Trump noted that he declared a national energy emergency on his first day in office to increase oil and gas leases and increase energy pipeline construction.
Mr. Trump highlighted his work to build a massive natural gas pipeline in Alaska and said that other nations, including Japan and South Korea, want to partner with the U.S. by investing trillions of dollars in the project.
“A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy.” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump called for a broad reshaping of the federal government after a chaotic six weeks in office in which he laid off tens of thousands of government workers, shut down scores of federal agencies and tried to claw back money Congress had allocated.
Technology billionaire Elon Musk, who spearheads the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to slash federal spending, attended the speech, although he does not have an explicit, formal post in the department or elsewhere in the government.
In a perhaps telling gesture, the famously underdressing businessman wore a suit and tie, which he did not do at the administration’s first Cabinet meeting.
Mr. Trump, ever the showman, had a few surprises in his speech. Perhaps the most significant, Mr. Trump revealed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had sent him a letter saying his country is ready to “come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring last peace closer.”
The president read the letter, which said, in part. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.”
“We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. Regarding the agreement on minerals and security Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you,” Mr Trump said Mr. Zelenskyy wrote.
Mr. Trump also announced that the U.S. has apprehended “the top terrorist responsible” for the suicide bombing that killed 13 troops during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. He did not name the person in custody or describe the circumstances that led to their capture, but he did thank the government of Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster.”
The president said the individual is on their way to the United States to face the ‘swift sword of justice.”
The former reality-TV star highlighted several Americans who were sitting in the box and made substantive actions toward some.
Among those were the family of Laken Riley, the young woman killed last year by an illegal immigrant, and the family of Corey Comperatore, a firefighter who was killed at the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally where Mr. Trump was nearly assassinated.
The president also honored Stephanie Diller, the widow of Jonathan Diller, a New York City Police Department officer who was shot on duty in Queens last March.
He also announced that he has renamed a wildlife refuge in Texas after a 12-year-old girl he said was slain by two illegal immigrant gang members.
After requesting the paper from Vice President J.D. Vance, he announced that he had designated a refuge near Galveston after Jocelyn Nungary as mother Alexis Nungary looked down from the public gallery.
And D.J. Daniel, a Texas boy who’s had cancer most of his life, was designated a Secret Service agent by Secret Service Director Sean Curran at Mr. Trump’s request.
The president spent a considerable portion of his speech detailing and even mocking some of the waste, fraud, and abuse uncovered by the DOGE team.
He mentioned the $8 million he said is being spent on experiments for “making mice transgender” and $60 million spent on “Afro-Colombian empowerment in central America. Mr. Trump also questioned spending for “LGBTQIA+” in the African nation of Lesotho, saying “nobody ever heard of” the far-off country.
But the president also tied DOGE’s efforts to his plan to reduce inflation.
“By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families,” he said.
Democrats who have criticized the cuts sought to counter Mr. Trump’s message by inviting fired federal workers as their guests, including a disabled veteran from Arizona, a forestry worker who fights wildfires and a health worker from Maryland.
They also invited guests who said they would be harmed by steep cuts to federal funding.
But Mr. Trump offered a stark warning to federal workers, telling them if they resist his administration policies, they will be fired.
Citing his “mandate for bold and profound change,” Mr. Trump railed against regulations, saying that “swamp” workers have used them to slow down his agenda. He declared that his administration will “reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy and he will restore true democracy to America again.”
“Any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately,” Mr. Trump said. “Because we are draining the swamp. It’s very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.”
The president also vowed to make the tax cuts from his first term permanent and pass legislation to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security benefits, overtime and the interest payments on car loans.
Mr. Trump has long advocated cutting taxes as a way to lower prices for Americans in combination with cutting waste through DOGE initiatives.
Absent congressional action, the core of Mr. Trump’s tax agenda is set to expire at the end of the year. Mr. Trump reminded lawmakers gathered in the House chamber for his speech that he wants those tax cuts to be made permanent so taxpayers have more certainty.
The president also announced a new White House office to resurrect the United States’s shipbuilding industry by offering tax incentives to those ship manufactures. He said the move will boost our defense industrial base and “resurrect the American ship building industry.”
Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins was chosen to be the “designated survivor” for the address, a tradition under which one person in the line of presidential succession does not attend the joint session of Congress in case something devastating happens, since nearly the entire line of succession is in the room for such speeches.
Several Democrats, including Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Christopher Murphy of Connecticut, boycotted the speech.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, encouraged his members to attend to “make clear to the nation there is a strong opposition party ready, willing and able to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the administration.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan delivered the Democratic response to Mr. Trump’s remarks. She won the state’s open Senate seat in November, outperforming Vice President Kamala Harris in a state won by Mr. Trump.
Ms. Slotkin, after making an impromptu vow to be briefer than Mr. Trump, warned that the president could usher the U.S. economy into a recession with his tariffs and other fiscal policies.
“The president talked a big game on the economy, but it’s always important to read the fine print,” Ms. Slotkin said. “Do his plans actually help Americans get ahead? Not even close.”
Ms. Slotkin said grocery and home prices are going up and the president has not laid out a credible plan to deal with either.
Mr. Trump is bucking the tradition of the president traveling the country to amplify his message in key states after a major address to Congress.
Instead, the White House will send Mr. Vance to underscore the key points in Mr. Trump’s address. He will begin with a trip to the southern border Wednesday and tour a migrant processing facility in Eagle Pass, Texas.
While Mr. Vance is stumping around the country, Mr. Trump plans to remain at the White House and focus on implementing his agenda.
The president laid out his vision for peace in Ukraine after a tumultuous few days with Mr. Zelenskyy.
On Friday, Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance got into a shouting match with the Ukrainian president in the Oval Office. The tense meeting rocked international relations around the globe, and some critics charged that the White House was too closely aligned with Russian President Vladimir Putin, an authoritarian adversary.
The bad blood spilled into Monday. Mr. Trump laid into his Ukrainian counterpart on social media after Mr. Zelenskyy said a peace deal was “far, far away.” Mr. Trump then paused all U.S. military aid to Ukraine and accused Mr. Zelenskyy on social media of upending efforts to achieve peace in the region.
A contrite Mr. Zelenskyy changed his tune Tuesday, saying he was ready to strike a peace agreement to end the three-year war and was willing to sign a deal that would give the U.S. access to his country’s rare earth minerals.
Mr. Trump said he’s working “tirelessly” to end the conflict in Ukraine. He reiterated his gripe that the European nations aren’t spending enough money to support Ukraine’s defense.
The president also took credit for “swift and unrelenting” action on immigration, noting that border crossings are down significantly from last year. He promised to keep America’s border secure.
• Mallory Wilson, LIndsey McPherson and Kerry Pickett contributed to this report.
