There was dismay on the left and jubilation on the right as Donald Trump addressed the US Congress with Washington’s political divisions rarely more visible.
The main news points were that the US President got a letter from the President of Ukraine stating he was happy with Mr Trump’s leadership on a peace process with Russia and was willing to sign a minerals and metals agreement “at a time of your convenience”.
And Donald Trump said he is forging ahead with plans to introduce a sweeping reciprocal tariff regime on every country the US does business with – with new import taxes and non tariff restrictions on imports to mimic what is done in other countries.
He urged Congress to scrap the US Chips Act, a Biden era flagship policy to subsidise the construction of microchip plants in the US, saying his tariff plans were driving investment without the need for public subsidies. He cited in particular Apple CEO Tim Cook saying the company will spend $500 billion on factories to make Apple products in the US.
The US (aided by Pakistan) has arrested the alleged mastermind behind the Abbey Gate bomb attack on Kabul Airport that left 13 US soldiers dead during the disastrous US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 (the emotional high point of last year’s Republican Party Convention in Chicago was the appearance of the families of the 13 on stage to tell their stories).
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He also wants Congress to implement his tax cut plan, and he vowed to balance the US budget for the first time in 24 years. That implies huge cuts to spending, and he praised Elon Musk and his DOGE team for uncovering waste and fraud in the federal budget already.
Most of the rest was a recitation of the dozens of Executive Orders he has signed in the 42 days since coming to power. And just to help us understand their significance, the White House communications office sent out no less than 12 emails with press releases detailing the policies grouped into various headings like ‘President Trump is securing our Homeland’ and ‘President Trump is restoring common sense to government’, and ‘President Trump is undoing Biden’s economic damage’.
As for the conduct of the speech before the joint houses, everyone seems to have played their part on this particular stage, with US TV pundits likening it to the British House of Commons – though to Irish eyes and ears (perhaps a little too accustomed to the Westminster way), it seemed fairly mild stuff.
But the pictures were stark at the beginning of the night – half the house standing and cheering, the other half sitting stony faced in their seats.
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For months, the Democratic Party has been in a post-election funk, unable to figure out how to respond to the Trump phenomenon and the pace at which this White House is working. Last night was probably the first organised attempt to present an opposition face to the administration.
Boos, jeers, heckles, and taunts were traded between Democrats and Republicans.
Within three minutes of the start of Donald Trump’s speech, Speaker Mike Johnston called the Sergeant at Arms to come to the floor and remove Representative Al Greene, a Texas Democrat, from the house for refusing to resume his seat.
Mr Green had brandished his walking cane and shouted at Mr Trump that he had no mandate to cut state medical insurance for the elderly.
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Mr Trump took it head on, and tried to defuse the Democrat plan.
“There is nothing I can do to make the Democrats happy, or make them stand and cheer. I could find a cure to the most terrible disease, or make the crime rate fall to its lowest level ever and these people wouldn’t clap or cheer. It’s five times it’s been this way (he said, referring to all his previous speeches in Congress) and it’s very sad, it just shouldn’t be this way.”
He was right – nothing the President said got a round of applause from the Democratic side of the House, except when he mentioned the billions of aid for Ukraine – a Biden era policy.
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But virtually every line was cheered by the Republican side for the first 20 minutes of this 100 minute marathon – the longest speech to congress of any US President (the Previous record was held by Bill Clinton, who talked for 89 minutes in 2000).
The most sustained Republican cheers were at the start when the President listed out many of the executive orders he had signed – particularly the “anti-woke” ones; ending Diversity Equality and Inclusion policies, banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Schools, officially recognising two genders (male and female) and banning transgender women from female sports.
Democrats started holding up signs saying “False” or “Musk Steals” or “Save Medicaid”.
Many of the female Democrat members were wearing pink
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene was wearing a Red MAGA hat.
Two people dressed in black t-shirts with the word “Resist” printed on the back were seen walking out.
Much of the speech was like a campaign rally – Joe Biden was blamed for many things, especially Green initiatives, which have been rolled back for “damaging the US economy”. Mr Trump mentioned a huge oil pipeline project in Alaska that is now going ahead under his presidency.
There were also big cheers for the cutbacks being led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Elon Musk, who was in the public gallery, wearing a sober suit with a deep blue tie.
Many had reacted to the critical questioning about Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky not wearing a suit in the Oval Office last Friday by pointing out that neither does Mr Musk, who also wears a MAGA baseball cap.
A somber dressed Elon Musk was seen in the gallery during the president’s address
The president took the time to list off some of the spending items found by DOGE – $8m dollars for “making mice transgender” got the biggest laugh, even bigger than the one for $40 million for “social inclusion of sedentary migrants – and nobody knows what that means”.
He took a very long time to list out the number of people in ten year age cohorts – starting with 3.6 million aged 110 to 119 – discovered in the Social Security system computers, running all the way up to the one person recorded as being 360 years old, older than the US itself.
Mr Trump implied that they were all getting paid social security pensions and benefits. In fact the system automatically stops payments at age 115. The names are still in the system because of poor record keeping and failure of counties to file death certificates up to the federal level.
The speech was punctuated by the president introducing people in the public gallery – mostly people he had met during the election campaign and made promises to – he wanted to show he was doing things for them, or remembering their service.
The wife of a slain policeman. A border guard who fought a gun battle with cartel members. The families of children murdered by illegal immigrants. A high school senior who wants to go to Westpoint military academy (the president told him his application has been accepted).
Marc Fogel was there with his mother. Mr Fogel was released from a Russian prison after an intervention by Mr Trump’s Middle East envoy and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. As fate would have it Mr Fogel is from Butler, Pennsylvania. President Trump met Mr Fogel’s 95-year-old mother at that fateful rally in Butler in July, and promised her he would never forget him.
Ten minutes later Mr Trump was shot at by a lone gunman, with a bullet grazing his ear.
Corey Comperatore, a local fireman, was killed and two other bystanders seriously wounded. Mr Comperatore’s family were in the gallery too.
As Mr Trump told the Congress that God spared him to ‘Make America Great Again’, former speaker Nancy Pelosi was seen mouthing “Oh my God”.
Another gallery attendee was DJ Daniels, a 13-year-old boy who dreamed of becoming a police officer. In 2018 he was diagnosed with brain cancer and given five months to live.
DJ Daniel was sworn in as a Secret Service Agent
In the almost seven years since his diagnosis he has been “sworn in” as an honorary police officer by numerous police forces, and last night the president asked the new head of the US secret service (the former head of his own protection detail, Sean Curran) to make him a Secret Service Agent, which the director duly did, and got a big hug from DJ.
Above all, last night was directed squarely at the MAGA Republican base – no reaching across the aisle to the Democrats, except to advise them to vote for his tax cuts plan, or never get elected again (he said they would thank him later if the voted for the plan). His message to the base was ‘I told you what I would do, and I am doing it for you’. The gallery guests were emblematic of that.
Most of the speech was about domestic US policy – very little about foreign affairs, the Middle East reduced to a quick line about big changes coming to the region, Ukraine and Russia dealt with in the short extract from the Zelensky letter.
His Republican Party Representatives and Senators played the part of a united front before a demoralised and dejected opposition trying to figure out its approach to being the opposition.
But in reality all it takes are two Republicans not voting for the president’s agenda in the House, and that piece of legislation is sunk.
And lurking in the background is a reminder of that precarious position.
On Friday week, at the start of St Patrick’s weekend, the US faces yet another government shutdown deadline in the endless wrangling about the budget.
Despite a game effort at presenting a strong and powerful Republican front led by President Trump, the legislative base necessary to make his plans stick is fragile. And that is before the economic blowback most expect from his tariff plan starts to bite.
The budget is where he really needs a quick win, but its the most elusive prize of them all.
Still President Trump stuck an optimistic note at the very end: “Get ready for an incredible future – the golden age of America has only just begun, and its going to be like nothing you have ever seen before”.
