Trump Prepares To Address Congress as Demoralized Democrats Find Their Fighting Spirit Again

President Trump will deliver an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday for the first time in half a decade following an historic return to power for a second term. This comes just as Democrats — deflated after being shut out of all corridors of power in 2024 — seem to be finding their fighting spirit again as Republican members of Congress are being harangued by constituents from coast to coast. In his first six weeks in office, Mr. Trump has yet to sign any major piece of legislation — which is typical as Congress gets its bearings — though his executive actions have come at a breakneck pace. Attempts at action on everything from tariffs to birthright citizenship to mass deportation prove, so far, that the president and his acolytes have no intention of slowing down. On Tuesday night, Mr. Trump will likely call on Congress to start the process of codifying some of those executive actions and continue its work on his legislative agenda, which is currently on shaky ground with some GOP members concerned about increases to the deficit and others worried about the political fallout of potentially cutting Medicaid. Mr. Trump’s speech will seem like a State of the Union address, though it will officially be just an address to a joint session of Congress. Recently inaugurated presidents are typically given the honor of speaking to both the House and Senate a few weeks into their term to talk about the legislative agendas grinding through Congress and the actions they have taken early on to kickstart their first term. Mr. Trump’s first month-and-half in the White House has focused heavily on his rapid takeover of the executive branch. His work with Elon Musk to shutter federal agencies, freeze funding, and lay off employees have been heralded as the much-needed takeover of the “administrative state,” though it also seems to be what has reignited Democrats’ resistance. When the House went into recess two weeks ago, Republicans — even those in deep-red areas like suburban Georgia, east Tennessee, and rural Kansas — were met with backlash to Messrs. Trump and Musk’s takeover. “The people would like to know what you, congressman, and your fellow congressmen are going to do to rein in the megalomaniac in the White House,” one woman with a thick Georgia accent asked Congressman Rich McCormick — who represents a district Mr. Trump won by more than 20 points — at a recent town hall event, leading other attendees to cheer. “As far as cutting out those jobs, a huge percentage of those people — and I know you care about the veterans — are veterans, and that is a damn shame,” a Kansas man told Senator Marshall of Mr. Musk’s mass firings at a town hall on Saturday. The senator then quickly left the room, leading attendees to boo loudly. The most famous moment from Mr. Trump’s similar address five years ago wasn’t a video of Democrats booing or of a standing ovation for an honored guest. In fact, the thing most people remember from that night did not even come during the then-45th president’s speech itself, but rather right afterward — the moment Speaker Pelosi ripped up a transcript of his address just as he prepared to leave the dais. Five years later, the former speaker says Democrats shouldn’t pull any such stunts. Rather, they should “let him stew” and not give him ammunition to say he was the victim of political performances by those sitting on the left side of the aisle. “Any demonstration of disagreement, whether it’s visual or whatever, just let him stew in his own juice. Don’t be any grist for the mill to say this was inappropriate,” Mrs. Pelosi told Washington Post columnist Paul Kane she advised her fellow Democrats. “Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Let’s hear what he has to say. More important, let’s see how the Republicans react to it.”For their own response to the president’s Tuesday speech, Democrats have tapped Senator Slotkin, who narrowly won her seat last year even as Vice President Harris fell flat in Michigan, losing the state to Mr. Trump by more than 80,000 votes. For six years, Ms. Slotkin represented a swing district in central Michigan, and was one of the first Democrats to declare that her party needed to get tougher on the border and immigration enforcement in the wake of the president’s sweep of the seven swing states this past election. According to the Detroit Free Press, Ms. Slotkin outran Ms. Harris by more than a full percentage point in 55 of the state’s 83 counties, giving her a margin of victory of just more than 18,000 votes in an election where more than 5 million cast.

Trump Prepares To Address Congress as Demoralized Democrats Find Their Fighting Spirit Again

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