WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday sought to paint his first two months in office as a seismic shift in American politics, during an address to Congress which garnered adoration from Republicans and sharp repudiation from Democrats.
It was the president’s first major speech to lawmakers since he returned to the Oval Office in January — and he wasted no time seizing the opportunity to highlight what he called “swift and unrelenting action” of his new administration.
“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in 4 years or 8 years, and we are just getting started,” he said. “I return to this chamber tonight to report that America’s momentum is back. Our spirit is back. Our pride is back.”
Trump’s wide-ranging remarks covered many of the president’s key issues, including the White House crackdown on immigration and efforts to stem what he called “runaway spending” in the federal government.
And, while some presidents have used joint sessions as a call for bipartisanship, there was little to be had as Trump delivered his speech. True to form, he called former President Joe Biden “the worst president in American history” and dinged gathered Democrat lawmakers for their opposition to his agenda.
“I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realize that there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” he quipped.
“Tell the truth,” some lawmakers responded.
Trump also nodded to his criminal investigations, repeating his refrain that he had been targeted by the Biden administration in a politically charged prosecution. “Never again,” he said as Republicans burst into cheers.
There wasn’t much bipartisan spirit to go around among Democrats, either. At the beginning of the president’s remarks, Texas Representative Al Green, who earlier this year filed impeachment articles against Trump, stood up to interrupt him. He was shouted down by Republicans but refused to relent — and was removed from the chamber by the House Sergeant-at-Arms in a dramatic moment.
Other Democrats staged less disruptive protests, holding up signs which read “save Medicaid” and “Musk steals,” alluding to billionaire Elon Musk who has worked alongside the Trump administration with his so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Meanwhile, the president renewed his vow to undertake mass deportations of people here illegally, foisting blame on Biden and other Democrats who he argued allowed unrestricted immigration into the U.S. to “overwhelm” the country with migrants.
“The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation to secure the border, but it turned out all we really needed was a new president,” he said.
And Trump called on Congress to increase funding for his deportation effort, as well as for his much-vaunted wall along the country’s southwest border. He also thumped his so-called “gold card” program, a proposed system under which people could purchase U.S. citizenship — the president has proposed a price tag of $5 million for that right.
Trump told lawmakers that his administration was working around the clock to curb government spending, taking a moment to spotlight Musk and DOGE — the White House-sanctioned outfit critics have accused of taking a “chainsaw” to federal agencies and programs.
“He didn’t need this,” Trump said of Musk. “Thank you very much, we appreciate it.”
The president noted a laundry list of government programs slashed by Musk’s team, including several initiatives funded by the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development, which represented around 1% of federal spending.
He also repeated a debunked claim that the Social Security Administration was making payments to people over 100 years of age. The Trump-appointed head of the agency has said that those people were “not necessarily” receiving benefits and that they had been left in the system because they had no date of death associated with their Social Security record.
The president similarly claimed that the Biden administration had ballooned spending, arguing that the former president had “let the price of eggs get out of control,” a line which elicited groans from Democrats.
“Their policies drove up energy prices, pushed up the cost of groceries and drove the necessities of life out of reach for millions of Americans,” Trump said. “We suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country.”
Economic experts agree that the spike in inflation that took place during the Biden administration was global in scale and that it was at least partially related to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The president also thumped his foreign policy actions in his first two months in office and said that he said “restored” American global leadership.
But among the policies he cited, Trump pointed to his efforts to bring an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, which he called “needless and brutal.” The president has in recent weeks distanced the U.S. from Ukraine’s war with Russia and the White House’s insistence that Kyiv engage in peace talks that could result in Moscow some of their sovereign territory.
Trump also cited his longstanding demands that Europe spend more money on defense, repeating the argument that European nations were taking advantage of the U.S. for security guarantees.
He also acknowledged a set of tariffs the White House implemented Tuesday against Mexico and Canada, measures which officials from those countries argued were the first volleys of a trade war against some of the U.S.’s closest economic partners.
Trump promised to continue reciprocal tariffs against countries that enact similar import duties against the U.S., as well as stand up “non-monetary” barriers to American markets.
“We have been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth, and we will not let that happen any longer,” he said.
The president’s remarks to Congress Tuesday were a far cry from the tone of the same speech he delivered during his first administration.
During that address, given in February 2017, Trump urged lawmakers to “work past the differences of party” and expressed a desire for “real and positive immigration reform.” The president vowed at the time to “respect historic institutions” and the foreign rights of other countries, adding that the U.S. “respects the right of all nations to chart their own path.”
And Trump closed his 2017 address with a message of unity — one conspicuously absent from his same remarks eight years later.
“We are one people, with one destiny,” he said at the time. “We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same American flag. And we are all made by the same God.”