President Donald Trump delivered a fiery, partisan and deeply divisive speech to members of the House and Senate on March 4. Republicans cheered and clapped constantly while Democrats sat silent, some with small signs decrying the lies with “false” or, objecting to Elon Musk, Trump’s unelected, unconfirmed head of DOGE, “Musk steals.”
Early on, Texas Democrat Rep. Al Green was ordered to be removed by Speaker Mike Johnson by the Sergeant at Arms for “disrupting the decorum” of the chamber. It was a contentious exit in the midst of Republican cheers for Trump and Democratic silence.
One of the seminal moments during Trump’s 99-minute speech to Congress featured Trump discussing the assassination attempt on him in Butler, Pennsylvania. While paying tribute to Corey Comperatore, the firefighter who was killed in that attack, and introducing Comperatore’s wife and two daughters, Trump said he was “saved by God to make America great again.”
This is a MAGA theme — that Trump is an emissary sent by and protected by God for his mission to change America. It’s messianic messaging that allows Trump to act with impunity — and that is exactly what he has been doing since Jan. 20.
Throughout his speech — the longest such address to Congress — Trump asserted that the MAGA movement was the greatest in U.S. history and that there had never been anything like it.
Trump spoke about his mandate in winning both the Electoral College and popular vote, and securing both House and Senate. Trump said the American people had voted overwhelmingly for his MAGA vision for the country.
The address to Congress was a litany of what Trump perceives as his calling: to “drain the swamp,” as he noted, and to prioritize his own plans — much like those laid out in Project 2025 — to reshape America back to a profoundly 1950s vision in which DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) is eradicated and white males are prioritized. In issuing executive orders ending all DEI, Trump has stopped programs that broaden the workforce to include more women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people.
It’s the economy
Beyond these excisions and his cutting of extraneous government spending, Trump gave a revisionist view of his tariff plan, ignoring the stock market crashing for days or the retaliatory backlash from Canada, Mexico and China over this new economic trade war. Economists assert tariffs will cost taxpayers at least $2,000 a year and will raise prices on basics within days. There was no mention of these troubling facts, even though Trump ran his campaign on how former President Joe Biden’s economic policies had inflated grocery prices.
Trump claimed companies would be moving their operations back to the U.S., specifically citing Apple and alluding to the auto industry. But in reality, car manufacturers say the tariffs will be devastating to the auto industry and will not only skyrocket prices for consumers, but could push the entire industry into chaos like in 2009.
What’s more, many companies including Target and Costco have already said they will be raising prices to counter the impact of tariffs.
Grim talking points
Trump used a significant portion of his address highlighting some of the worst assaults on Americans by undocumented migrants, including the brutal murder of college student Laken Riley, whose mother and sisters were Trump’s guests. Trump repeatedly blamed Biden and what he termed an open-border policy for these killings.
Trump also renewed his anti-trans messaging. He introduced Payton McNabb, 19, a former high school volleyball athlete who received a traumatic head injury after a trans player spiked a ball into her face at 17. McNabb suffered partial paralysis as well as an end to her athletic career.
Trump made trans issues a major talking point in his campaign. He has signed an executive order banning trans athletes of all ages from women’s sports and in his speech spoke at length about the threat he says such players pose. McNabb has been supported by Independent Women’s Forum, a group that lobbies against trans people, so she was more than just a guest of the president.
Trump has also signed an executive order asserting there are only two genders. One of the people he introduced was January Littlejohn, the mother of a student who Trump said was told at school they could “change genders” and who began using they/them pronouns and using another name. Trump said Littlejohn is “fighting this form of child abuse.”
Trump also called on Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing gender-related surgeries in children, and “forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”
Throughout his campaign, Trump asserted that children were getting gender reassignment surgeries at school without their parents’ knowledge. This focus on trans issues has been one for which Trump has gotten approval from both Republicans and some Democrats.
Make America American again
Reclamation was another theme of Trump’s speech — wresting monies from allies Trump believes have taken advantage of the U.S., including South Korea and India. Trump also wants the Panama Canal under U.S. control. He has renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America and renamed Denali as Mount McKinley. These actions are all part of the MAGA plan to put America first.
Additionally, Trump touted how he has withdrawn from the Paris climate accords and the World Health Organization. In contravention of Biden’s environmental plans, Trump said “drill baby drill” would be his watchword.
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid
Vulnerable groups including those 55+, disabled Americans, children and LGBTQ+ people are under threat from Trump and Musk’s plans to sunder Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, upon which millions depend for their sole income and health care.
In perhaps the most egregious lie of the address, one cited by CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, Trump claimed people listed as being over 120 years old were receiving Social Security.
These “facts” Trump presented made for laughter in the chamber while also appearing to bolster Musk’s claims that “Social Security is a Ponzi scheme,” leaving those listening unsure what to believe.
Democratic response
Former congresswoman and newly elected Sen. Elisa Slotkin (D-MI) gave the Democratic response. Rather than address specific points from Trump’s speech, she explained that she was a lifelong public servant who had served tours in intelligence and that she was elected by people who split their tickets between Trump and her.
Slotkin made the case for unity and for understanding how many households have both Democrats and Republicans, like her own growing up.
It wasn’t a bad message, per se, but in not addressing some of the pivotal issues Trump raised, it failed to call out the assault on truth and the not-so-subliminal assault on women, people of color and LGBTQ+ people, as well as on Social Security, health care and the environment.
Slotkin had an opportunity to present a clear plan for the future and define the Democrats’ role as an opposition party but did not do so.
Supporting Putin
Just days before his address to Congress, Trump had a contentious and very public exchange in the Oval Office with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy which ended with Zelenskyy being asked to leave the White House.
Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Zelenskyy for being ungrateful and disrespectful. Trump insisted without U.S. support, Ukraine would be unable to continue fighting the war. Zelenskyy was asking for assurances that he would have security from the U.S.
Trump offered no such assurances. He compared Zelenskyy and Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, a comparison that inflamed Zelenskyy and shocked Democrats and European allies.
Despite Trump’s claims, Putin is a murderous dictator who invaded Ukraine, killing millions in that country. Putin has killed dissenters, activists and journalists. His assault on LGBTQ+ people has been both historic and devastating. Putin has claimed LGBTQ+ people are trying to destroy the fabric of Russian families.
European allies understand that Putin is the bad guy in this. They rallied behind Zelenskyy who attended a summit in London on the weekend. The U.K.’s King Charles III even met with the Ukrainian president in a show of support.
One of the fact-checks from CNN on Trump’s speech notes that EU allies have provided more monetary support for Ukraine than the U.S. whose numbers were inflated by Trump.
Europe remembers keenly what happens when a dictator invades a sovereign nation. In 1939, Adolf Hitler invaded Poland and a year later, the Nazis were annihilating Jews at the complex of concentration camps at Auschwitz there.
No one is suggesting Putin is Hitler, but he most certainly is an arrogant and single-minded killer who lets no one stand in his way.
Trump siding with Putin over Zelenskyy is singularly bad for America and just reaffirms longstanding perceptions that Trump is beholden to the dictator. The Kremlin reported being pleased by the exchange with Zelenskyy. This only serves to put U.S. national security at risk.
Are ballots under threat
For years, the GOP has claimed Democrats are cheating at elections. Trump never conceded the 2020 race, which led to the January 6 insurrection, and his new Cabinet secretaries were uniformly unable to say Biden won the 2020 election.
A central issue for Republicans has been mail-in ballots. Several states only use mail-in ballots and they are also essential for the elderly, the disabled, workers and those in rural areas with limited access to polling places. Mail-in ballots are also used by the military and Americans abroad, making them essential.
But now, Trump has a plan to take over USPS. This would give him control over mail-in ballots and raises significant questions about what the next election would look like and how secure those ballots would be if controlled by the Trump administration.