Trump’s Address To Congress Was A Dishonest, Far-Right Manifesto
A visibly defiant Trump delivered an incredibly divisive speech that was as partisan as it was dishonest. It was a far-right fever dream totally detached from reality and the struggles of Americans.
My friends at The UnPopulist have launched Executive Watch, a new project tracking Trump’s abuses of presidential power in real time. Their goal is to build a comprehensive, easily searchable database of his overreach. I’ve partnered with them to share this resource, and I highly recommend checking it out and subscribing.
On Tuesday night, President Trump walked into the House Chamber to thunderous applause from one side of the room and silent indignation from the other.
Before Trump even reached the podium, Democrats launched a series of public protests. They refused to join the traditionally bipartisan escort committee, signaling their rejection of his presidency. As Trump walked in, it was immediately clear this was different.
Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) stood directly to Trump’s left and held up a sign that simply stated, “This is not normal.” It’s unclear if President Trump saw the sign, but Republican Rep. Lance Gooden (TX) certainly did, quickly snatching it out of her hand and throwing it in the air.
Once at the podium, the president proved Stansbury’s point.
A visibly defiant Trump delivered an incredibly divisive speech that was as partisan as it was dishonest. It was a far-right fever dream totally detached from reality and far from the struggles of everyday Americans.
Many of Trump’s lies, especially about migrants, have seeped into mainstream discourse. But we can’t afford to let his framing go unchallenged. Calling out his disinformation remains a necessary journalistic responsibility.
As I’ve written before, President Trump has clearly misread his mandate and declared premature victory in the culture war. The Trump Administration has been arrogantly overplaying its hand and receiving mounting public backlash. But Trump spent his address as if he was speaking to a campaign rally of his supporters, making no effort to reach out to Americans who disagree with his far-right agenda.
As Trump sought to place a positive spin on his chaotic first month and a half in office, he failed to mention his many failures and authoritarian abuses of power. He failed to mention his mounting legal setbacks, the real-world harms being caused by DOGE’s gutting of the federal government, or how Republicans are set to likely cut key social programs like Medicaid.
While Republicans stood and cheered as Trump listed his onslaught of executive actions, Democrats showed no signs of support, with some walking out with “NO KINGS LIVE HERE” printed on the back of their shirts. It was a visual representation of the divided state of our country.
If you didn’t stay up to watch the full hour and 40-minute speech, which was probably the right mental health choice, I have the highlights for you and my takeaways.
At the beginning of the speech, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) stood up in protest, later telling reporters, “The president was saying he had a mandate, and I was making it clear that he has no mandate to cut Medicaid.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) banged the gavel and warned Rep. Green to take a seat before directing the Sergeant at Arms to remove Green from the chamber.
Later in his speech, Trump said, “And I've stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America. It's back.” The hypocrisy of this was apparent after Rep. Green was kicked out of the House Chamber for protesting. It was compounded by the fact that earlier that same day, President Trump sent a post vowing to end all federal funding for colleges that allow “illegal” protests and to imprison or deport any participants.
This would be an absolutely authoritarian violation of the First Amendment. This further highlights the hypocrisy of the right-wing fake "free speech" warriors. Trump wants free speech for his supporters and for speech they disagree with to be shut down and criminalized.
Following this hypocrisy was an avalanche of partisan lies.
Trump falsely claimed DOGE has saved hundreds of billions of dollars in spite of there being zero public evidence of this. Trump falsely claimed that migrants are being sent to the US from mental institutions in spite of there being zero evidence of this. He blames President Biden for rising egg prices, in spite of the fact it’s the fault of the avian flu, which Trump’s administration has done nothing to prevent.
Trump also said that DOGE found $8 million being spent on making mice transgender. CNN’s Deidre McPhillips investigated and reported that claim as false.
I highly recommend CNN’s article on the address, which fully annotated and fact-checked every single line of Donald Trump’s speech. It’s a phenomenal piece of journalism.
As Trump unleashed his torrent of lies, Democrats held up signs that read “false.”
“Our country will be woke no longer,” Trump declared before going into a tirade about how he’s targeting DEI and the transgender community.
Trump talked about the importance of hiring based on merit, in spite of a Cabinet filled with appointees who were hired entirely based on loyalty. Trump also launched into a diatribe about transwomen playing in sports, in spite of the fact transgender athletes are incredibly rare.
Trump said, “Common sense has been a common theme” in his administration. That needs no explicit fact-check. Common sense should tell you whether that’s true.
After a lengthy culture war section, Trump finally got to the issue most Americans care about: the economy.
Trump said he’s fighting to make America affordable again on the same day his price-hiking tariffs went into effect. In reality, Trump is doing everything in his power to raise prices.
Trump tried to make the case for his tariffs and said, “Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer — I love the farmer.” Farmers will be among the worst impacted by Trump’s tariffs.
When referencing tariffs, Trump claimed, “It may be a little bit of an adjustment period,” a quote I’m sure will be used in countless midterm ads.
Trump gave a shout-out to DOGE and said it’s headed by Elon Musk - sparking legal trouble for his administration. Trump’s lawyers have been arguing in court that Musk is not the head of DOGE. Trump’s new remarks immediately sparked legal filings.
Trump also discussed his administration’s assault on the federal bureaucracy:
“My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again.
And any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately. Because we are draining the swamp — it's very simple — and the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.”
This is important because this effort is core to Project 2025. This purge of federal workers is being kicked into higher gear by key Project 2025 architect and OMB Director Russell Vought. I wrote an article on his recent memo last week.
Trump then launched into one of his favorite pastimes: going into vivid detail describing anecdotes of undocumented immigrants committing violent crimes. Of course, this is a dehumanizing tactic seeking to generalize the migrant community. As I’ve written about extensively, undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than legal immigrants and native born citizens.
The rest of the speech was unremarkable, with Trump shouting out cabinet members, broaching stories of guests he brought to the House Chamber, and touching briefly on foreign policy.
Trump said that America will get Greenland “One way or the other,” actively ignoring their sovereignty. Speaking of ignoring sovereignty, Trump did bring up Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in a more conciliatory tone, referencing Zelenskyy’s recent comments about wanting peace.
This doesn’t erase what has happened over the past week. First, Trump attacked Zelenskyy in the Oval Office as a pretext to pause aid to Ukraine. And on Wednesday, the day after this speech, his admin paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine.
It’s clear to me that Trump is applying one-sided pressure on Ukraine in an attempt to push Zelenskyy into surrendering to Putin’s demands.
We’ll need to see a change of course on Ukraine from the Trump Administration before we draw any conclusions from Trump’s remarks.
Trump ended his speech by declaring, “My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future because the golden age of America has only just begun.”
If only that were the case. In reality, America is not heading in the right direction.
If you were a foreign adversary and crafted a plan to weaken the US economy, erode America’s global standing, damage Western alliances, gut the federal government into ineffectiveness, and divide the American public, it would look like what the Trump administration is doing right now.
Far from ushering in America’s golden age, Trump is seeking to shift the U.S. fundamentally into the far right’s vision for the future. We’ll see how effective it is, but at the moment, it appears to me that it’s backfiring spectacularly.
So glad I slept through it, Ahmed. But also glad that so many great people have covered it for me. Thanks for the tip about the CNN fact check. I’ll save that for the morning. Now for something escapist! Keep calm and carry on.