Most if not all the past US Presidents have used the first major speech to the Congress as an opportunity to reach across party lines and offer areas of common ground.
Donald Trump did just 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.
The US President Trump celebrated his clampdown on the 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.
“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.
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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.
Her mother welled with tears as she watched from the gallery.
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.
Ahead of 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 need to make clear that the president is “transparently and brazenly lying to the American people”.
Days after a televised row in the Oval Office with Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump said Ukraine’s leader had told him he was now ready for talks with Russia and a US minerals deal.
“I received an important letter from President Zelensky of Ukraine. The letter reads (that) Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer,” Trump said.
Trump also doubled down on his controversial vows on “taking back” the Panama Canal and getting Greenland from Denmark by “one way or another”. Democrats have so far struggled to counter Trump’s flood-the-zone strategy and his hogging of the news cycle with constant press conferences.
On the Democrats’ rebuttal speech, Senator Elissa Slotkin aimed her sober address at middleclass Americans, calling Trump and Musk “reckless” at home and giving up on “American leadership” abroad.
Following Trump’s address, the newly elected Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin of battleground 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.”
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