President Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday for the first time in five years. Democrats are determined not to make their response all about him.

That might come as a surprise for those who remember what ensued during Trump’s first term. His congressional addresses became a prominent stage for the Democratic resistance, with lawmakers booing, chanting and walking out at times. Many chose outfits and invited guests to make a point. Most famously, in 2020, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Trump’s speech while seated directly behind him on the dais.

This time, many Democrats are signaling they’ll take a less pugilistic stance — the latest sign that the party is still coming to terms with how to confront the president, even as the party base grows increasingly restless.

“In 2017, a lot of us felt like Donald Trump was an anomaly. In 2025, he won the election. Everybody knows who he is. He said what he was going to do, and the country still voted for him, so I think we have to be very strategic as Democrats,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.).

That strategy, 10 Democratic lawmakers said in interviews, is to use the speech to focus on the impacts of Trump’s second-term policies. Some are bringing guests to highlight the Trump administration’s radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, including union leaders, laid-off government workers and others affected by the federal funding freeze.

“Just a protest isn’t going to win us the next election,” Bera said. “Instead, we should say, ‘Look, that’s what he’s doing.’”

Several Democrats said they were just as interested in highlighting the cuts implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire hatchet man Elon Musk, as they were in shining a light on Trump himself.

In fact, private guidance sent to Democratic lawmakers and obtained by POLITICO urged them to coalesce around a message that “Democrats are on the side of the American people while Trump and Republicans in Congress stand with Elon Musk and billionaire donors.” They are also being urged to “bring a guest who has been harmed by the Trump administration’s early actions or will be hurt by the House Republican budget.”

Notably, there does not appear to be a mass Democratic boycott of Trump’s speech in the works, as there was in past years. Rather than skip the speech, some Democrats said they wanted to show that Trump faces opposition — the image of seated, stern-faced Democrats while Republicans stand and cheer. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said it was important that the viewing public “sees a significant presence of us there.”

It’s not a universal sentiment. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a substantial population of federal employees in his suburban district just outside Washington, said he’ll skip the speech after attending addresses during Trump’s first term.

“The notion of half my colleagues rising and standing and enormous clapping for … things that I think are terrible for the American people every couple minutes will not be funny,” he said. “I don’t see that I’ll contribute anything to the event.”

Tuesday’s speech is not technically a State of the Union, but it will go off with much of the same pomp and circumstance. Trump is widely expected to use the speech as a theatrical spectacle not only to show off his overhaul of the federal government and his dismantling of Democratic priorities but to create viral moments that will delight his MAGA base. (In 2020, for instance, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to talk show host Rush Limbaugh live from the rostrum.)

Democratic leaders are indicating they will not take the bait as they try to keep the focus on Trump’s policies and the cost of living. They chose Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to deliver the party’s official response — a lawmaker who ran a disciplined campaign last year focusing on economic issues and won a state where Trump also prevailed.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) has been tapped to give a Spanish-language response, with party leaders signaling that he, too, could be discussing economic issues. The progressive Working Families Party has Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) delivering a separate left-flank rebuttal.

Asked about the speech, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday that Trump needed to answer the questions: “Why has he failed to do anything to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America, and why has the Trump administration unleashed far-right extremism on the American people in a way that represents an assault on the American way of life?”

Large-scale disruption is still unlikely. Some lawmakers have privately discussed walking out as an entire caucus during the speech or wearing pink hats in protest, but there’s less enthusiasm for such demonstrations than in past years.

That’s not to say lawmakers aren’t upset. Many Democrats are still figuring out how to channel their anger with Trump over lingering memories of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection and fresher emotions over his pardons of the rioters, along with the president’s continued dismantling of cherished federal programs.

“He’s so much more abusive, but my job is to be there,” said Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), who is bringing as her guest a fire chief from her southern California district to highlight planned FEMA cuts.

One more conspicuous gesture of protest will come from members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, which will be making a statement with their choice of clothing, according to Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.), the group’s chair. It’s a reprise of a gesture they employed during the first Trump term, when they wore white to honor suffragettes.

“Women across this country are furious,” she said. “And so I think we’re going to bring that fury to the State of the Union in creative ways, and we’re going to make sure that Trump knows and that Americans who are watching understand Trump’s America.”

At least one prominent Trump antagonist could be among them: Pelosi plans to attend, according to a spokesperson.

When several dozen Democratic political operatives and elected officials gathered at a tony resort off the Potomac River last month, frustration boiled over at the left wing of their party.

Democrats had become too obsessed with “ideological purity tests” and should push back “against far-left staffers and groups that exert a disproportionate influence on policy and messaging,” according to a document of takeaways from the gathering produced by the center-left group Third Way and obtained by POLITICO.

The group of moderate Democratic consultants, campaign staffers, elected officials and party leaders who gathered in Loudoun County, Virginia for a day-and-a-half retreat, where they plotted their party’s comeback, searched for why the party lost in November — and what to do about it. Much of what they focused their ire on centered on the kind of identity politics that they believed lost them races up and down the ballot.

One of the key ways to win back the trust of the working class, some gathered there argued, was to “reduce far-left influence and infrastructure” on the party, according to the takeaways document. That included building a more moderate campaign infrastructure and talent pipeline, pushing “back against far-left staffers and groups that exert a disproportionate influence on policy and messaging,” and refusing to participate in “far-left candidate questionnaires” and “forums that create ideological purity tests.”

The gathering resulted in five pages of takeaways, a document POLITICO obtained from one of the participants. (Not all attendees endorsed each point, and the document — and Third Way — kept the identities of participants private.)

“In the wake of this election, where it became so evident that the things that the left was doing and saying deeply hurt [Kamala] Harris and down-ballot Democrats, a lot of people are looking to us, not just Third Way, but the moderates in the party, and saying, ‘We got to do it your way, because the other way ain’t working,’” said Third Way’s Matt Bennett, who helped organize the February retreat.

The document itself is perhaps one of the most comprehensive and sweeping of its kind following the election — both in its analysis of what went wrong and how to fix it.

The retreat’s conversation centered on the party’s disconnect with the working class. Among the causes of that detachment: weak messaging and communication, failure to prioritize economic concerns, overemphasis on identity politics, allowing the far left to define the party, and attachment to unpopular institutions such as academia, media and government bureaucracy.

If Trump’s first term energized the party’s progressives, there are early signs his second term is doing the same for Democratic moderates.

The party chose the battleground-state moderate Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to deliver its response to Trump’s address to Congress and the nation on Tuesday. Slotkin outperformed Harris by more than a full percentage point in all but 28 of the state’s 83 counties, according to a Detroit Newsanalysis.

Those gathered then laid out 20 solutions for how Democrats can regain working-class trust and reconnect with them culturally.

Among their takeaways:

• The party should “embrace patriotism, community, and traditional American imagery.”

• Candidates should “get out of elite circles and into real communities (e.g., tailgates, gun shows, local restaurants, churches).”

• The party needs to “own the failures of Democratic governance in large cities and commit to improving local government.” 

The party, many of those gathered also argued, needs to “develop a stronger, more relatable Democratic media presence (podcasts, social media, sports broadcasting).”
Bennett said that, with the meeting coming just three months after the election, “we didn’t expect to have a lot of answers about exactly what the Democratic offer to the working class on the economy ought to be going forward. We were still kind of picking through the rubble here.”

Bennett added, “I think what we discussed there on economic issues was the profound disconnect that we saw between the way that leading Democrats were talking about the economy and the way that people were actually experiencing it.”

Democratic mayors of four cities with sanctuary policies to protect migrants are consulting with advisers, hiring lawyers and preparing to redact documents ahead of a grilling by House Republicans — hoping to avoid the kind of Capitol Hill spectacle that embarrassed three Ivy League presidents a little over a year ago.

These mayors are also furiously conferring with anyone they know who can offer insight and counsel about how to handle the kind of scrutiny that resulted in the ouster of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill following the late 2023 congressional hearing on antisemitism at elite colleges.

Just as Republicans hammered Magill and others for what they saw as condoning alleged threats to Jewish students and faculty, Republican members of Congress will on Wednesday ask the mayors of New York, Chicago, Boston and Denver to defend their more permissive immigration policies against high-profile, if isolated, episodes of violent crime by undocumented immigrants.

“I just want to make sure that people understand that [this is] a city that has been established by immigrants and migrants who were formerly enslaved,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters about the message he hopes to relay to Congress. “It’s the global capital of the world, and we’re going to continue to show up at our very best.”

Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee are getting ready for this moment, too, especially Chair James Comer, who sat on the Education and Workforce panel that questioned Magill and other university presidents. He said in an interview he was impressed by how Rep. Elise Stefanik, the former education committee chair who President Donald Trump nominated to be U.N. ambassador, ran those proceedings.

In a sign of how seriously the Kentucky Republican is taking his own preparations to produce a similar, politically explosive event, he and his members last week sat down to discuss immigration policy with Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and the architect of some of Trump’s most aggressive efforts to curb illegal immigration, according to a person granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.

“We expect accountability — we expect the mandate that President Trump was given on the border to be implemented, and hopefully there won’t be any obstruction or opposition to the law,” Comer, who may run for governor in 2027, said in an interview. “If the mayors are protecting people who are here illegally, then they are breaking the law.”

The ramp-up on all sides speaks to the high political stakes of the upcoming hearing, both for the policies at the center of the debate and the political futures of the committee chair and the four mayors: Johnson, Eric Adams of New York, Michelle Wu of Boston and Mike Johnston of Denver. All four cities have struggled to shelter and support the influx of migrants from the Southern border.

Adams likely has the most at stake: The Trump Department of Justice recently called for the mayor’s criminal bribery and fraud case to be dismissed, citing his cooperation on immigration enforcement. (Adams continues to deny the charges.) Shortly thereafter, Adams met with border czar Tom Homan and announced he’s drafting an executive order allowing ICE agents back into the city’s Rikers Island jail complex.

Adams has rejected criticism he’s beholden to the Trump administration and says he has his constituents’ best interests at heart. Still, observers expect Adams — a former New York Police Department captain — will be treated differently than the other mayors, with Comer contending the New Yorker’s perspective is unique given his cooperation with the administration.

“He was one of the first blue city mayors that was representing a sanctuary city that said, ‘wait, we cannot handle anymore. This is a drain on our resources,’” Comer said of Adams. “I think that that’s what makes him a good witness.”

Adams will seek to strike a balance before the committee, according to his spokesperson Kayla Mamelak Altus. While the mayor believes in the spirit of sanctuary laws, he also thinks those laws currently go too far. He is expected to testify that immigrants are crucial to his city’s success — but also that the “long-broken immigration system” should be fixed, law-abiding New Yorkers should be protected and violent criminals should be targeted.

The mayor has been meeting daily with his legal, intergovernmental and communications teams in preparation for Wednesday’s hearing, Mamelak Altus said. And his deputy mayor for intergovernmental affairs, Tiffany Raspberry, is the liaison to both the Oversight Committee members and the other mayors’ teams.

At the same time, the contrast between Adams and the other Democratic mayors could pose a political risk for the three more progressive city leaders — including Johnston of Denver, who said in November he was willing to go to jail over his opposition to Trump’s mass deportation plans.

In preparation for the hearing, Johnston has conferred with Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Diana DeGette — both Colorado Democrats — for pointers on appearing before Congress. He also has contracted the Washington-based attorney Dana Remus, a former White House counsel for President Joe Biden.

The city of Denver is preparing to gather documents requested by federal officials, and it is expected to redact information so the hundreds of city employees who have been involved in the sanctuary city work are not unnecessarily targeted for doing their jobs.

Meanwhile, an attorney close to the Chicago mayor’s office hopes to see Johnson stick to his talking points as Republicans may try to pit Adams as “the good compliant mayor and Johnson as the deviant.” The attorney was granted anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Johnson has connected with former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor who has experience working with GOP elected officials — including representing congressional Republicans in two high-profile redistricting cases. He is also working with the city’s corporate counsel, Mary Richardson-Lowry, on how to respond to legally sensitive questions, and the city has contracted with outside counsel.

Wu, the Boston mayor, has received guidance in advance of the hearing from Rep. Stephen Lynch, a fellow Massachusetts Democrat who sits on the Oversight Committee. He called after Comer first extended the invitation for Wu and others to testify, Lynch said in an interview with a local station.

The story Wu is likely to tell is that of her city’s plummeting murder rate. Boston earned national attention for the drop in homicides last year, and the number of shooting victims and instances of gunfire have also ticked down of late. That has prompted Wu to regularly tout Boston as “the safest major city in the country.”

Wednesday will reveal whether the mayors’ preparations are a match for Comer, whose team has been building anticipation for the big event. Last week, Oversight Committee Republicans released a dramatized video, akin to a movie trailer, previewing the hearing, depicting a Constitution burning to reveal the faces of the four Democratic mayors. Ominous music plays, and Comer vows to cut federal funding for those who fail to cooperate with U.S. law.

But in a recent interview, Comer maintained that creating a made-for-TV moment was not his goal. He was there when Stefanik asked those university presidents whether calling for the genocide of Jews violated their codes of conduct — a “substantive question,” Comer recalled, adding that rarely do substantive questions go viral.

“First of all, our goal is to get the truth, we believe in transparency,” Comer said. “My job isn’t entertainment. My job is to get the truth to the American people.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski delivered a scorching rebuke Saturday of President Donald Trump’s explosive exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a rare voice of Republican dissent as party members lined up in support of the president’s increasingly combative relationship with Ukraine.

“I am sick to my stomach as the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embracing Putin, a threat to democracy and U.S. values around the world,” the Alaskan wrote in a Saturday afternoon post to X.

Her admonishment came after a disastrous bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelenskyy, which saw Trump publicly berate the Ukrainian leader. In the hours after the exchange, most Republicans were quick to support Trump’s “America First” approach to realigning the U.S.’s role on the world stage.