Trump doubles down in address to Congress | Playbook Daily Briefing

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President Donald Trump mocked Democrats who sat in front of him Tuesday night, needling them with a grin, “nothing I can say or do to make them happy.” Democrats mostly responded with silent protest — wearing pink, waving placards emblazoned with “FALSE” and “Save Medicaid.” More than a dozen walked out of his speech early, some revealing shirts that said “No Kings Live Here.”

The shambolic scene was emblematic of Democrats’ larger problem after facing a brutal election cycle that locked them out of power as they struggled to communicate in a vastly fragmented media environment. Though the official Democratic response, delivered by Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, got carried on major networks, much of what Democrats had to say didn’t play out on voters’ TVs.

“We’re all trying to get up to speed as fast as possible to take this fight right to Republicans,” said Shasti Conrad, associate Democratic National Committee chair, in an interview with POLITICO after the speech. “But there’s a little bit of a delay.”

Absent a sharper, in-the-room response, frustrated Democrats vented online, complaining that the Democrats’ signs were “giving bingo” and “not landing,” as former Joe Biden spokesperson Symone Sanders Townsend put it on X. North Carolina Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton added: “why did democrats go to this tbh,” while late-night host Stephen Colbert mocked Democrats for their signs, making one of his own that said: “Try doing something.”

Democrats’ protest was “very silly, and unserious, but I can’t help but feel some level of empathy for them,” said a Democratic strategist granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly. “I’m sure they feel like they have to do something, anything, [but] that wasn’t it.”

Outside the chamber, Democrats sharpened their political attacks on Trump. Some Democratic lawmakers headed to the party’s influencer spin room, where they invited 30 progressive-aligned social media influencers, like Brian Tyler Cohen and Liz Plank, to Capitol Hill. Social media creators pumped out political content before, during and after Trump’s speech — a first-of-its-kind effort for the party during such an address.

Those videos started to pop on social media, starting with Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), who told YouTuber Adam Mockler inside the spin room: “We’re fighting with Greenland, we’re fighting with Canada, we’re fighting with Mexico — yet we’re in love with Putin? What is happening? This is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. Somebody slap me and wake me the fuck up.”

A House Democratic aide, granted anonymity to discuss the issue candidly, acknowledged that “a key learning” from the 2024 loss was that Democrats “have a lot more work to do to reach people online.”

“Local TV is still really important, but it has to be a both-and strategy,” the aide added.

Senate Democrats, led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), offered a pre-buttal to Trump’s speech in a series of direct-to-camera videos, featuring senators using the same “shit that ain’t true” script. Republicans mocked Democrats for the videos’ hokeyness, including Elon Musk and Libs of TikTok, but they also elevated the videos on their own social media channels.

Booker argued in an interview with Puck that the Republican retweets “drew attention to our message today,” which “shows that we can do their playbook just as well, which is to use our ecosystem of connected progressive voices to get a single message out.”

Conrad, who said she did an Instagram live earlier in the day to prebut Trump’s speech, added she was “confident” Democrats understand the assignment and are ready to “both go to the outlets that are already there, but also to build our own.”

Trump, for his part, did offer up a series of clippable moments for Democrats from his speech that could be used in future campaign ads and social media posts. Democrats seized on Trump’s acknowledgment that “there will be a little disturbance” due to his tariffs levied on Canada, Mexico and China.

“‘There will be a little disturbance’ is a genuinely Soviet way to describe people not being able to afford their groceries,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) posted on X.

Some Democrats, including those eyeing possible 2026 congressional bids and 2028 presidential runs, looked for non-traditional ways to respond. Among them: Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who opted to deliver his first TV interview following Trump’s inauguration on Colbert’s show.

Buttigieg criticized Trump on his preelection pledge to lower grocery prices.

“The biggest issue on people’s minds — the affordability of everyday life — is not something that got more than a few seconds of mention in his speech,” Buttigieg told Colbert. He added, “If eggs are $10 and you’re a billionaire, that’s a little disturbance for you, but not for most people.”

Michigan State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is like Buttigieg weighing a Senate bid to replace retiring Sen. Gary Peters, took to Instagram to answer questions.

“People are sick and tired of performative nonsense,” McMorrow told POLITICO. “They don’t want to see their elected officials try to be cute or clever. People are anxious and scared and angry and energized and want to see substance and clear direction.”

McMorrow added, “Democrats need to think about how we actually cut through … not just adding to the noise.”

Amid that noise, Democrats appeared to plead with Americans to listen to them.

“Pick just one issue you’re passionate about and engage. And doom scrolling doesn’t count. Join a group that cares about your issue and act. And if you can’t find one, start one,” Slotkin said.

She said, “Don’t tune out.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wanted a “solemn” response to President Donald Trump’s congressional address Tuesday. His members had other ideas.

Moments after Trump began speaking, Texas Rep. Al Green rose and interrupted the president until he was ejected from the chamber. Other members held signs blasting Trump and his policies. Repeatedly they met Trump’s partisan provocations with chants and jeers. Many simply walked out of the chamber, leaving the Democratic section increasingly empty as the speech went on.

The minority party is still trying to find its footing and a winning message after losing control of government last fall, and the protests and walkouts underscored just how difficult it will be for Democratic congressional leaders to effectively harness the anger of their party’s voters, activists and elected officials.

Jeffries and other party leaders have counseled a measured approach, one focused on the impacts of Trump’s policies — particularly the cuts being undertaken by billionaire ally Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. Lawmakers were encouraged ahead of the speech to emphasize the effects of Trump and Musk’s overhaul of the federal government and to bring guests impacted by the House GOP budget blueprint or by Musk’s actions.

Some of the Democratic protests were largely in line with that directive. The Congressional Progressive Caucus, for instance, distributed signs to its members to signal disapproval of specific Trump policies, believing their silent protest was in line with leaders’ wishes. This bloc and some of the other Democrats had given leadership a heads-up about their plans, even as they were encouraged not to bring props like signs and whiteboards.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), a Progressive Caucus member who walked out, said what was “important to our leadership was that we stayed focused on the message” but that there was room for Democrats, as the minority party, to make their opposition to Trump plain.

“We’re doing the best with what we have — we don’t have gavels,” said Takano.

In a statement after the speech, Jeffries called it “one of the most divisive presidential addresses in American history” but didn’t address the protests from members of his caucus. His wish for a “solemn” response invoked a word often used by his predecessor as top Democratic leader, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, who had little patience for freelance activism at high-profile, high-stakes moments.

Parts of Trump’s speech Tuesday night were marked by spasms of raw anger. With the trauma of the Jan. 6 insurrection and the brutal beatings of Capitol officers still fresh in their minds, Democrats shouted “Jan. 6” at Trump when he praised law enforcement during the speech. Democratic lawmakers sprinted for the exits when Trump wrapped up the address, and none lingered to talk to the president as he left the House chamber.

“To be honest with you, I would have rather spent time sticking needles in my eyeballs than sitting through this speech,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.). “It was awful.”

Many Democrats who made gestures of protest saw their demonstrations as a way to counter the disruption wrought by Trump and his allies.

“If they’re moving different, we have to move different, and that’s how we match their energy, and that’s why I walked out,” said Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.). “I did something unprecedented today, because they are doing something unprecedented every day — making history for the wrong reasons.”

The rising tide of demonstrative behavior from the opposition party arguably began in 2009 with South Carolina GOP Rep. Joe Wilson’s outburst of “you lie” at then-President Barack Obama. More recently, Republican members such as Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado shouted during President Joe Biden’s joint addresses. But Republicans criticized Tuesday night’s protests of Trump all the same.

“The level of vitriol from the Democrats was the worst it’s ever been,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told reporters. “It’s a new, terrible standard.”

Most Democrats, meanwhile, refrained from criticizing their colleagues who protested the president.

“I think that there should be more decorum on both sides, and I think there should be bipartisanship, but unfortunately we’re not living in that day and age,” said purple-district Rep. Vicente Gonzalez (D-Texas.). “There’s a lot of emotions around this country, and we saw them tonight on both sides.”

Democrats have faced pressure from their base to mount a more determined resistance to Trump, and some of those who protested Tuesday said that they wanted to show that resistance.

“It’s worth it to let people know that there are some people who are going to stand up” to Trump, Green told reporters after getting expelled from the chamber. He shouted that Trump had “no mandate” to pursue his agenda, later explaining he was protesting proposed cuts to Medicaid and other programs.

Speaker Mike Johnson said following the speech that Green should face a congressional censure for his disruption. (Wilson was handed a reprimand, a less severe sanction, for his outburst in 2009.)

Green said he was prepared to “accept the punishment” and had no regrets about acting out.

“It is the best way to get it across to a person who uses his incivility against our civility,” he said.

Lisa Kashinsky, Mia McCarthy and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

President Donald Trump declared the far-reaching, disruptive actions of his first 40 days in office as the first wave of a “common sense revolution,” blaming Democrats during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday for lingering problems and claiming credit for a wrecking ball approach that is roiling Washington and the world.

“America’s momentum is back,” Trump said in a stemwinder that lasted an hour and 40 minutes. “Our spirit is back. Our pride is back.”

While most presidents use such addresses to tout new programs, unveil ambitious initiatives or whip legislation, Trump offered a laundry list of all that he had obliterated — pacts with foreign governments, regulations, diversity initiatives.

Boasting about his early flurry of executive orders, Trump said that everything — withdrawing the U.S. from climate treaties, the World Health Organization and the UN human rights council; slashing the federal government, freezing regulations and all foreign aid — was an effort “to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth.”

“The people elected me to do the job, and I’m doing it,” he continued, declaring it a “a time for big dreams and bold action.”

On a day that saw the stock markets dip following Trump’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico — and in the midst of a high-stakes diplomatic staredown with Ukraine that has allies anxious — Trump promised that it was all part of a plan to enrich the country and force neighbors to crack down on the drug trade.

“My administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. And we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” Trump said. “The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”

Trump last year urged Republicans to thwart a bipartisan border bill to deny former President Joe Biden a win, just months before the election. His taunting of his predecessor typified a speech that was full of all the familiar Trumpian self-congratulation, hyperbole and withering partisan attacks.

Trashing the man who defeated him in 2020 as “the worst president in American history,” Trump blamed his predecessor for illegal immigration, stubborn inflation and, specifically, the high price of eggs, and said his first month in office is the best ever. “Do you know who number two is?” Trump asked. “George Washington.”

Opening his speech by recounting his victory in last November’s election, Trump drew shouts and protests from the Democratic side of the aisle. One lawmaker, Rep. Al Green, (D-Tex.), was removed from the chamber after continuing to shout back at the president in protest of the Republican plan to cut Medicaid.

Trump groused that there was “nothing I can do” to make Democrats “stand or smile or applaud” him, claiming that his victory amounted to a “mandate like has not been seen in many decades.”

Describing the Republicans’ reconciliation bill as a package of “tax cuts for everybody,” he sarcastically suggested that Democrats should vote for the proposal they have derided as a giveaway for corporations and the wealthy.

“I’m sure you’re going to vote for those tax cuts because otherwise I don’t think the people will ever vote you into office,” Trump said.

His dismissal of the opposition party, who he needled and mocked throughout the speech, prompting several Democrats to walk out of the House chamber mid-speech, came as Republicans may need Democratic votes to avoid a government shutdown. And it underscored an inclination that has thus far defined Trump’s second term — an even greater indifference to countenancing establishment views or bipartisan buy-in for his MAGA agenda.

While declaring that lowering costs for families was his top priority, Trump devoted only a few lines to the subject. Claiming he was “working hard” to get the price of eggs back down, he implied that the job was in the hands of his secretary of Agriculture, who he addressed directly like he might have done in a boardroom scene from ‘The Apprentice.’

“Secretary, do a good job on that one,” he said, pointing at Brooke Rollins.

He continued with the reality-show style theater throughout the speech, signing an executive order renaming a wildlife refuge after a woman who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant, naming a pediatric cancer patient in the balcony an honorary Secret Service agent and admitting a star student, also in attendance, into West Point.

Trump devoted more time to defending his and Elon Musk’s chainsaw-styled slasher approach to reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. After thanking Musk, who he described as “the head of DOGE (the Dept. of Government Efficiency),” Trump drew laughs as he listed several of the aid programs he had cut: “a $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish; monitoring, $1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia; $14 million for social cohesion in Mali; $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.”

And he mischaracterized “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program,” suggesting that payments were being made to thousands of deceased individuals, a debunked claim that Trump has made repeatedly.

Musk, who attended the address Tuesday night, has had to scramble to rehire several of the critical employees he indiscriminately fired, including those who oversee the country’s nuclear weapons. And the tech billionaire has acknowledged making a number of mistakes. But Trump framed DOGE’s work as part of his economic agenda.

“By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of American families,” Trump said.

He also touted $1.7 billion in new investments in America since he took office and defended the controversial approach with tariffs that has shaken the stock market and angered allies in Canada and Mexico. Trump demanded that those countries “do much more” to tackle the flow of illegal drugs to America, which he has used as his rationale for the tariffs — despite almost no fentanyl having entered the U.S. from Canada.

In a nod to the political risk of those policies, Trump spoke directly to American farmers, who required a $29 billion bailout by Trump following tariffs in his first term. But he offered no specifics. “I love the farmer,” he declared. “Our farmers are going to have a field day right now.”

Tariffs, Trump said, “are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There will be a little disturbance. But we’re okay with that. It won’t be much.”

Losses on the major stock indexes this week following Trump’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico wiped out all gains for the S&P 500 since Election Day.

Turning to foreign policy some 80 minutes into his speech, Trump returned to the brash imperialism outlined in his inaugural address, vowing to wrest control of the Panama Canal away from the Chinese and suggesting that a looming independence vote in Greenland would ultimately result in the U.S. taking it away from Denmark.

“One way or the other we’re going to get it,” Trump said.

He blamed Biden for the messy 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the war in Gaza that he said wouldn’t have happened on his watch and for spending too much money backing Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Just more than 24 hours after pausing all U.S. military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sign an economic agreement with the U.S. and engage in peace talks with Russia, Trump read a letter Zelenskyy wrote him Tuesday expressing regret over last week’s blow-up in the Oval Office and desire to achieve peace.

“I appreciate that he sent this letter,” Trump said, offering nothing further about whether the agreement to share profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals was still on the table.

He criticized Europe for spending more on Russian energy than aid to Ukraine and called out Democrats — and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in particular — for criticizing his approach of pressuring Ukraine while accepting a number of Russian conditions and even parroting Kremlin talking points.

“Do you want to keep it going for another five years?” he said, looking at the Democratic side and keying on Warren. “Yeah, yeah, you would say — Pocahontas says yes.”

Pete Buttigieg met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last week to discuss a possible Senate bid in Michigan, according to two people familiar with the meeting and granted anonymity to describe private conversations.

The former Transportation secretary is still undecided about a Senate run in his adopted home state, according to five people familiar with the situation. But the meeting with Schumer was a sign of how seriously he is considering it.

Democrats are vying to hold onto the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters in a crucial swing state. Republicans see it as a top pickup opportunity after coming close to flipping the other Senate seat last cycle.

Buttigieg, a former presidential candidate, just recently moved back to Traverse City, Michigan, with his young family, after four years of working in former President Joe Biden’s Cabinet — a factor that looms in his calculus. In addition to a Senate bid, he is weighing another presidential run in 2028.

Buttigieg hasn’t taken any formal steps to run for Senate. Some Michigan Democrats noted that he didn’t attend a party gathering last month in Detroit, which could have been a place to shore up support with state party leaders, though other possible candidates, including state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, only showed up there to vote.

McMorrow told fellow Michigan Democrats she will run for the seat. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), meanwhile, has not formally decided on a bid but has taken steps towards a Senate run, including hiring staff.

Regardless of Buttigieg’s decision, two people familiar with his thinking said he sees a path to helping shape the national political debate in non-traditional spaces, including a Tuesday evening appearance with Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show,” where he will respond to President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.

Those people said Buttigieg doesn’t pine for a life in a Republican-controlled Congress, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune controls how often he needs to be back in Washington.

Last month, Buttigieg ruled out a run for governor, according to someone familiar with his thinking, who told POLITICO then that he was “very seriously focused on a potential run for Senate.” Despite that, some Michigan Democrats have encouraged Buttigieg to run for governor to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

There’s a large field of ambitious Michigan Democrats already in the field for the top job in the state government, including Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Genesee County Sheriff Chris Swanson and current Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist, not to mention Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who’s running as an independent.

When President Donald Trump speaks to a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, the audience with the most sway over his second-term agenda won’t be the lawmakers. It’s the Supreme Court justices.

Trump’s blitz of early executive actions have triggered a tsunami of more than 100 lawsuits — many of them heading toward the high court. Two of those actions have already made it to the justices, and their looming rulings could strike at Congress’ power to control federal spending and the independence of executive branch watchdogs.

Trump’s muscular moves to crack down on legal and illegal immigration, fire tens of thousands of government employees, shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, end diversity, equity and inclusion programs and strip the rights of transgender people all raise significant questions about the legal limits of executive power.

“When a president’s agenda relies on unlawful actions, a lot of the action is going to be in the courts,” said Elizabeth Goitein of New York University’s Brennan Center. “There’s no question that all of this is going to be challenged. This will be a true test of the Supreme Court in many, many ways.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and a few other justices typically attend State of the Union addresses, though the full bench doesn’t always show up. The justices sit in the front row of the House floor, typically putting on their best poker faces while the members of Congress around them cheer and jeer.

In previous years, even subtle reactions by the justices have stoked controversy. And this time, the speech will be occurring while the court is facing two imminent decisions that could affect the trajectory of Trump’s term.

The two major disputes about Trump’s assertions of presidential power at the high court have the potential to deliver another jolt to his rocky relationship with the conservative justices, including the three he appointed in his first term.

One involves Trump’s ability to fire executive branch officials despite laws Congress passed to protect those appointees from removal without cause. The other revolves around Trump’s authority to oversee an abrupt and sweeping freeze on billions of dollars in foreign aid. Trump is likely to discuss in his remarks Tuesday some of these efforts as part of his administration’s work to shrink the federal bureaucracy.

At the heart of both cases is Trump’s desire to test and stretch the outer boundaries of executive power — and whether Trump can bypass laws meant to limit his ability to fire people and curtail programs he doesn’t like despite Congress funding them.

The two cases have another thing in common: They have zoomed to the court on the so-called shadow docket, where the justices handle emergency requests. And more requests are likely given the scores of pending challenges to Trump policies.

Trump’s penchant for executive action driving much of the litigation stems from his desire to be seen as getting stuff done and his impatience with process and congressional negotiations. It’s also born out of necessity.

Thanks to a razor-thin GOP margin in the House and the effective veto that the Senate’s filibuster rule hands to Democrats, the prospects for Trump passing much in the way of legislation are minimal. In crudely partisan terms, Trump’s policies may stand a better chance with the six-justice conservative majority he cemented in his first term than they do across the street at the Capitol.

During his first term, Trump repeatedly trashed judges who ruled against him. His invective against the judiciary grew so pointed that Roberts issued an extraordinary statement disputing the president’s description of a jurist who ruled against the administration’s asylum policies as an “Obama judge.”

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them,” Roberts declared.

During Trump’s first term, his policies got a mixed reception at the Supreme Court. The court largely upheld his pro-business environmental policies and allowed him to spend billions of dollars on his border wall project despite failing to get funding for it through Congress. On the other hand, the court rejected Trump’s effort to end the program for so-called Dreamers.

One of his highest-profile and most controversial moves — the travel ban dubbed a “Muslim ban” by critics — was effectively slowed and watered down by litigation. The high court ultimately let part of the ban take effect and ultimately upheld the president’s authority to issue it.

“Sometimes, if you listen to the mainstream media, you’d think that the court handed him everything on a silver platter, which isn’t true. But I think [they] went his way more often than not,” said Curt Levey of the conservative Committee for Justice. “At least some of the justices didn’t seem crazy about Trump. If you were predicting it based just on ideology, probably more would have gone Trump’s way. But there seemed to be a certain desire to push back against Trump, right? Until I see otherwise this term, I’ll just assume that it’s going to be the same.”

As his first term came to a close, Trump was bitterly disappointed that none of the justices — including his three picks: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — backed any of the legal challenges to his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

“The Supreme Court, they rule against me so much,” Trump told the crowd at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. He also complained that the justices were too worried about their standing on the “social circuit.” “And the only way they get out is to rule against Trump. ‘So, let’s rule against Trump.’ And they do that. So, I want to congratulate them,” he said sarcastically.

As Trump was mounting his bid to return to the White House, he often groused about the justices. In 2022, when the court refused to step in to prevent his tax returns from being turned over to a House committee, he made his bitterness clear.

“Why would anybody be surprised that the Supreme Court has ruled against me, they always do!” he wrote on Truth Social. “The Supreme Court has lost its honor, prestige, and standing, & has become nothing more than a political body, with our Country paying the price. They refused to even look at the Election Hoax of 2020. Shame on them!”

At other times, Trump has been almost effusive about the court, particularly on the role the justices he appointed played in overturning the federal constitutional right to an abortion after nearly half a century.

“With the help of six very wise and brave Supreme Court Justices, I was successful in terminating Roe v. Wade – Something which few thought was possible to do!” Trump wrote. (Only five justices actually joined in the decision to end Roe. Roberts, an appointee of President George W. Bush, did not sign onto the majority opinion when the court took that momentous step in 2022.)

Of course, but for a couple of key wins at the high court last year, Trump wouldn’t be speaking to Congress or advancing any government agenda because he may never have returned to the presidency.

In March, the justices unanimously rejected a bid to knock Trump off the ballot in Colorado due to his role in fomenting the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021. And in July, the high court split largely along ideological lines as it upended special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutions of Trump by ruling that presidents enjoy broad criminal immunity for acts taken while in office. The justices’ ruling helped fuel Trump’s narrative that he was being unfairly persecuted by his enemies.

Trump’s conflicted view of the court and his tendency to harbor perpetual disappointment in the justices was at its clearest in 2023 as he addressed a National Rifle Association convention in Indianapolis.

“They don’t help me much. I’ve got to tell you that. They vote against me too much,” Trump said. “It’s one of those little things in life, right?….They are outstanding people and great scholars, brilliant. And they’ve done a very good job, I always say–-except for me.”

President Donald Trump is set to address Congress — and the rest of the country — on Tuesday evening, his first prime-time address since the start of his second term.

A president addressing Congress each year is routine. However, from deep cuts to federal agencies to public feuds with foreign allies, the early days of Trump’s second term have been nothing close to standard. Trump’s upcoming address is expected to recount and expand on the administration’s aggressive efforts to fulfill the president’s ambitious campaign promises to reshape the federal government.

Here’s what you should know before Trump takes center stage tonight.

When and where can I watch the speech?

Trump’s address to Congress will begin Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET. The speech will be broadcast on major television networks and available to stream on certain websites, including POLITICO.

What will Trump talk about?

The theme of Trump’s address will be the “renewal of the American Dream,” and will feature sections on the economy, border security and foreign policy, Fox News reported.

“TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post ahead of the address on Monday.

Trump has signaled plans to share updates about efforts to end the war in Ukraine in his speech. The president paused military aid to the country Monday night as a result of a heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last week — furthering fears from Trump’s domestic and international critics about the U.S. more closely aligning with Russia.

He is also expected to discuss his administration’s efforts to bulldoze the federal bureaucracy. The Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s cutting spree has been at the center of the administration’s work over the past six weeks.

Why isn’t it called the State of the Union?

The Constitution requires that presidents “shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union.” Over the years, the address — referred to as a State of the Union — has become a major broadcast television event for Americans.

But the speech a president typically gives shortly after taking office is not called a “State of the Union” address, getting the more pedestrian title of an address to a joint session of Congress.

There’s no functional difference once the president starts speaking, however.

Who is attending?

Primary attendees of the address include lawmakers from both chambers of Congress, members of the president’s Cabinet, Supreme Court justices, Trump’s family members and a variety of other invited guests.

Republican Reps. Jim Jordan and James Comer — who chair the House Judiciary and Oversight committees — will be bringing two IRS whistleblowers who divulged tax information about Hunter Biden, former President Joe Biden’s son, to the address.

Democratic lawmakers have invited former federal employees impacted by the administration’s efforts to overhaul the government workforce. Other Democrats have announced plans to boycott the address, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.).

Who is the designated survivor?

Every year, one Cabinet official is chosen as the “designated survivor,” watching the speech from a secured location. This individual does not attend the speech in person in case a catastrophic event occurs that puts the presidential line of succession at risk.

The White House does not usually announce who the designated survivor is until closer to when the speech starts. In Trump’s 2017 address to Congress, former Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin held the role.

Who is giving the Democratic response?

Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) is slated to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to Trump’s speech after his address on Tuesday night — a prominent undertaking for a lawmaker considered to be an up-and-comer within the Democratic Party.

“I’m looking forward to speaking directly to the American people next week. The public expects leaders to level with them on what’s actually happening in our country,” she wrote in a post to X last week. “From our economic security to our national security, we’ve got to chart a way forward that improves people’s lives in the country we all love, I look forward to laying that out.”

The first-term senator’s speech is expected to focus on topics like inflation, which is an issue that propelled Trump’s return to the White House and Democrats have been sharply criticized over.