Trump Defends Agenda In Combative Address

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon.
I cover politics. I'm Asma Khalid.
I cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis.
I cover politics. It is 1147 p.m.
Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 4, 2025. And earlier tonight, President Trump gave a joint address to Congress.
As soon as the president arrived in the House chamber, the tone and tenor of things was noticeably different than many previous similar speeches. Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation and chanted USA as he approached the lectern.
Some Democrats skipped the event altogether, and those who were there were largely silent and seated. That is, until the speech started.
Mr. Green, take your seat.
Take your seat, sir. Take your seat.
Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the chair now directs the Sergeant-at-Arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber.
So that was early on in Trump's speech when House Speaker Mike Johnson directed the Sergeant-at-Arms to remove Congressman Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, from the chamber for interrupting Trump after Trump said he and Republicans had won

a mandate to govern. This was quite a moment, wasn't it?

Yeah, look, I don't think that interruptions of the president during a speech like this,

a State of the Union or a joint address, are that atypical anymore. I think going back to

Barack Obama's presidency, where Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina very famously shouted,

you lie at him. And that was a moment that was seen as sort of breaking with historical decorum.
But I got to say, ever since then, it's almost been a bit of a feature of these events to have some element of the minority party, for lack of a better word, heckle, where I think that Al Green took it to a new level was he refused to stop, that he interrupted the proceedings and actually led to the sergeant at arms, which is sort of the law enforcement body of the House of Representatives, to remove a congressman. I can't say that's never happened before, but in my recollection, at least of the modern era, I can't recall any instance of that ever happening.
Sometimes there's been protesters up in the galleys that have been taken out by security. But for a member of Congress to disrupt was a bit of a surprise.
I would also note that Al Green is someone who has been a very loud Trump critic since his first term. He was one of the first lawmakers to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump in his first term.
So it didn't necessarily surprise me that he was the type of lawmaker leading that kind of charge. It also struck me that Democrats are really struggling in this moment with just how to articulate a response to President Trump.
After he was escorted out of the chamber, he made a stop at the White House traveling press hold, and we got a pull note saying that he was explicitly yelling no mandate because he was referring to the no mandates to cut Medicaid. And he said it's worth letting people know that there were some folks willing to stand up for that issue.
Again, it's pointing to the fact that, you know, Democrats in the chamber, outside the chamber, those who didn't attend, were all trying to figure out the best way to show opposition in this moment. I don't think they've come to any agreement on how to do that.
Yeah, and, you know, some of the Democrats were holding up these pre-printed protest signs.

They came ready with them that read,

Musk steals, protect veterans, save Medicaid.

And then Trump responded to this big moment by speaking to Democrats directly.

So Democrats sitting before me, for just this one night,

why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America?

Thank you. sitting before me, for just this one night, why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America? For the good of our nation, let's work together and let's truly make America great again.
So after that initial commotion, the rest of Trump's speech read kind of like a laundry list of areas where he is claiming victory so far. Some of Trump's claims like eliminating fraudulent Social Security spending for people over the age of 150, something he's talked about before, that's been debunked repeatedly.
And we should mention NPR's team of reporters fact-checked the address in real time, and we have a link to that in our show notes. You know, Asma and Sue, what else stood out to you? I think what stood out to me was that oftentimes this first joint address to Congress for a new president is about laying out an agenda.
Now, keep in mind, Donald Trump is not entirely a new president, but he's done a lot in the six weeks he's been in office. And he went through all of that.
You know, he's frozen foreign aid. He's withdrawn from the World Health Organization.
He's made English an official language. But my point in laying all this out is that he's done a lot.
And so a lot of this speech was actually articulating some of the things he's done. And he leaned heavily into the culture war issues.
You saw this with his focus on trans issues, his focus on immigration and the border. These are places he feels really comfortable.
But what we did not hear much of in this speech, and it sort of surprised me, was his plan to tackle inflation and high prices. Trump has said that he won this election because of two main issues, the border and high grocery prices.
He talked a lot about the border. We did not hear a whole lot about his plan to deal with grocery prices.
Yeah, I think so much of it was classic Trump, and it felt very reminiscent of his style on the campaign trail. I think it was maybe a little bit more base focus than I might have expected in a dress like this to be, because it's one of those moments where you might actually have an audience that isn't just the party faithful.
But Trump will willfully repeat things that are just wrong or make promises that are just not true. Sarah, you referenced the Social Security one, which I think that's an important point, because this is the president using an address like this to repeat something that is just absolutely not true, suggesting that dead people and people over the age of 100 are collecting Social Security payments.
It's just not happening. And to use a platform like that to repeat that, I think tells you a lot about the universe that Trump lives in.
I also think he makes claims like my administration is going to balance the federal budget. Absolutely no plan on the table offers any path to balancing the budget.

But it was a bit of an echo chamber speech to me.

I think that he was getting exactly the feedback that he wanted from the Republicans in his party. I wasn't in the chamber, but I'm not sure there was like a single rallying moment in that speech tonight.
And to me, one of my takeaways is like, we know that Trump brings about a certain amount of partisanship when he governs. And it feels like the second time around, it's likely to be even more acute as Democrats on the Hill really position themselves into a very defensive crouch right now.
OK, let's get to his speech. You know, when it comes to the economy, obviously, one of Trump's big themes is tariffs.
And no surprise, he talked about that tonight. What did you hear in that part of the speech? He sees tariffs as a sort of revenue cure-all, right? He sees it as the possible solution for so many things.
And one of the things that I was struck by is his recollection of how tariffs worked the first time around, right? I mean, he put in place massive tariffs on over $300 billion worth of goods coming in from China. most economists will say that didn't really lead to any net positive gains for the U.S.
economy. In fact, it actually hurt many consumers who ended up eating up those tariffs, right? And economists will say it's often like a tax on American consumers.
And he kind of acknowledged that and alluded to the fact that it was tough for farmers the first time around and said, once again, it might be tough in the beginning, You might have to bear with me. Yeah.
And I do think, to me, that is a recognition also that there are certainly some folks, even within his own Republican Party, who have hesitation about the efficacy of tariffs. But again, I say that like this is a broad strategy, not just he's

talking about tariffs on China. He's put in place tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
These are amongst

the United States largest trading partners. He's talked about tariffs on all steel and aluminum.

Another batch of tariffs coming in April where he says these are reciprocal tariffs,

meaning if a country tariffs the U.S. at a certain rate, he intends to tariff them back at a certain

rate. This is a huge sort of multipurpose tool that he feels can be used for so many things.
And the question I've had is, like, how much of this is really about an economic revenue adjuster? Is this really just a political negotiation tactic? But also, I think today is a great example about how Trump's rhetoric doesn't live in a vacuum. You know, they announced new tariffs.

And the result of that was stock markets have been very volatile. And today there was major drops in the stock market.
And then immediately you see people like Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik coming out and saying, oh, we might walk back some of those tariffs we just announced. And Trump just injects a ton of uncertainty into the economy.
And the economy likes certainty. So I think that Trump is trying to do two things, which is somehow take a lot of credit and grow the American economy, but single handedly being the source of so much uncertainty that makes it very difficult to predict what's going to happen.
Well, another source of that uncertainty for many people is the way that Trump and Elon Musk, who has become part of his inner circle, are reshaping the federal government through Doge. Trump talked about that.
He touted that as one of his accomplishments. What did you hear from Trump about what Doge has done so far? Can we just say that sometimes politics is funny and I try to find the humor in things.
And when Trump had a line about how no longer unelected bureaucrats are going to be running things, and then later is like, and there's Elon Musk up there, an unelected bureaucrat making profound changes to the federal government. I'm sorry, I just had to, I had to see the irony in that moment.
Look, I think Musk is a singularly fascinating and powerful figure in American politics right now. And I also thought it was notable that Trump very obviously gives him credit for running the doge effort while at the same time his administration is arguing in court that Musk isn't technically in charge of it.
So again, creating some murkiness there. And, you know, another big theme from Trump tonight and forever is immigration.
He took up more than 10 minutes talking about that in this speech. He said his administration, quote, launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.
Asma, what did you hear there? Look, immigration has long been, I would argue, Donald Trump's favorite political issue. It is a place he feels very comfortable speaking of.
And he talks about the fact that he won in part, major part, because of the border. And it is true that encounters at the border have decreased rather substantially, I believe, over the last month.
So this is a place where you can point to a political win. The other thing you saw tonight, and this is, again, I think very true to form for Donald Trump, were some of the special guests that he had brought into the chamber tonight.

There were family members of victims who were killed by people who were not in the country legally. And, you know, part of when you look at who's the guests that a president often invites, it's about humanizing and giving a human face to a president's top priorities.
And this is a place which he feels very comfortable on. It is a place in which he believes he can point to actual like data wins in showing that there have been drops and encounters at the border.
I also think that there were some of these moments in the speech tonight where Trump was effective at sort of rope-a-doping the Democratic Party on things that are much more popular within the public. And when I say that, like I think back to when Biden did this at one point when he was giving an address in which he was kind of goading the Republican Party about cutting Social Security or Medicare, and they started booing him down.
And he was like, oh, great, you don't want to cut it. Like he had a moment.
And I think that when Trump was talking about particularly people like Lakin Riley, and Democrats were not sort of responding to their families in the chamber or not cheering for the fact that people had been arrested. I think that that is an easy thing to cut and splice politically in a way that I think very much fits Donald Trump's political goals.
On to another topic from the speech, that's Ukraine. Trump has been very critical of that support, and here's what he said in his speech.
Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far. Think of that.
They've spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending. And we've spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby.
That's what happened. And they've spent $100 billion.
What a difference that is. We should note the most widely used tracker of Ukraine aid shows that the U.S.
has provided $114 billion since the full-scale Russian invasion three years ago, and Europe has provided $132 billion collectively. And Trump said he's been talking with Ukraine and Russia to find a way to make peace.
It was the first time he'd spoken publicly about Ukraine since that meeting with President Zelensky at the White House last week, which ended in a shouting match. What struck you about his comments tonight? I mean, what struck me about the comments was just how little new there was to say about Ukraine.
You know, I was at the White House on Friday. President Trump, this Trump administration wanted to sign a mineral deal with Ukraine.
They see that as part of a broader plan to end the war with Russia. He was not here delivering sort of a grand vision of peace when it comes to Ukraine and Russia, because that's not what he has on his hands.
I mean, he said that Zelensky seems open to some sorts of negotiation and referenced a letter that he has received from Ukraine's president. But really, substantively, there wasn't a whole lot new about Ukraine.
Look, I will say that one of the things I think Trump is doing that could hurt him politically is let's go back to the top, right? He says he believes he has a mandate. But reality is he won by a smaller margin than Joe Biden did or Barack Obama did before him.
Like the mandate thing is very questionable. And I do think when Trump spends time talking about things like the US is going to welcome Greenland if they want to be part of our country, and we're going to take back Panama Canal.
Like, I'm not sure that Trump won this election because American voters had some grand new idea of manifest destiny. I think that they wanted economic relief.
And you could argue they wanted some to put the brakes on what they saw as some leftward lurching in society of cultural issues. But he can kind of talk about things that I think move the ball.
And right now, when you're a president that's ultimately not that popular, right, that stuff's risky, where it looks like you're focusing on stuff that is not the reason why people elected you. And I think he's on much firmer footing when he's talking about things like immigration and also talking about things like trying to lower energy prices or, you know, the cost of eggs.
But as we also talked about earlier this week on the podcast, Trump doesn't have to run free election. It's almost two years until the midterms.
And he seems to be happiest playing to his base. And I think we saw during that speech just how supportive his party was, even as, you know, the other side of the aisle was very silent.
All right, it's time for a quick break. And when we come back, the Democrats' response to the president's address.

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And we're back. As is tradition with these early joint addresses or State of the Union addresses, the minority party delivers an official party response.
That came from Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin, who had the job for Democrats this year. Sue, just tell us a little bit about Slotkin.
Why was she the choice for the rebuttal? Well, she's been, since she first arrived in Congress, I think seen as a bit of a rising star. And I think her choice has a lot of symbolism to it.
She was first elected to the House in the 2018 midterm wave that was seen as a backlash towards the first term of the Trump presidency and part of a crop of women that were elected in that class. And then in this most recent election, she won the Senate race in Michigan and she won it narrowly, but she won in a state that Donald Trump carried as well.
So I think that the Democratic Party, as they seek to find the right messengers and the right leaders right now, picking her tells you that that's the type of person that they're trying to appeal to, a Democrat that can win over Trump voters because that was her path to election. And I thought it was pretty interesting because her speech was, I think, it felt shorter than a lot of the rebuttals.
It felt more focused. And I think that, you know, we've talked about this before in the podcast, these speeches can often be a bit of a jinx or become a parody.
And I think she was successful in like not doing anything that seemed like it was obvious that it was going to be parodied on Saturday Night Live this weekend. I think she did a perfectly acceptable job for what the job is.
Yeah, I mean, she was pretty laser focused on this message that Trump is essentially Trump has made all of these promises, but he's not going to be able to deliver on them, especially when it comes to improving the economy. Do his plans actually help Americans get ahead? Not even close.
President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. He's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America.
And to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life. But she also acknowledged that there are reasons why people are supporting Trump.
And she said at one point that she recognizes that Americans want change and there's a responsible way to do that. And there's a reckless way to do that.
Right. And so I think that multiple times you heard her acknowledge this underlying desire for change, but point out that the way Trump is going about doing this is just not responsible.
Well, and you also heard her single out Elon Musk, and I believe she called his gang of 20-year-olds who are going through the system to trim and slash the federal government. And she also talked about her own personal background of somebody who had worked under both the Bush administration and the Obama administration.
And I think to me that was an appeal to reach out to folks who may feel somewhat politically homeless in this moment.

It was also very notable to me, especially in contrast to Trump's speech, where he really did focus on divisive social issues, particularly things like trans rights. And in the Democratic rebuttal, there was none of that.
She said she was going to focus on three fundamentals that the Democratic Party believes in, which is that the country was built on the middle class, that a strong national security is a good thing, and that our democracy is worth fighting for, which were probably the easiest focus group messages that you could argue to get through. But it really leaned out from any of the divisive social stuff.
And it also, to me, does say that the Democratic Party doesn't quite know how to re-engage on those issues, especially coming off of the 2024 election, in which many of them believe that they lost because the party was seen as too left to center on some of these issues. You know, so you mentioned earlier that she was talking about protecting democracy as a pretty simple message that tests well.
You know, she ended her remarks by calling on Americans who oppose Trump to not tune out, to show up to town halls and hold their elected leaders accountable, and to work on making progress on issues that they care about, even if it's just one issue, she said. Is that a message, though, that gets voters excited at this point? That's a great question.
I did think it was kind of funny, too, where she had a line, I'm paraphrasing, where she said something like, just by the fact that you're watching this speech says you're engaged citizen, which I think is probably true, which I thought was honestly pretty self-effacing and accurate. One of the things I think we're watching, and we've seen a little bit of it percolating on social media, is what is actually happening back at home in the real world.
And there has been some social media moments of Republican lawmakers being shouted down or having these contentious moments at town halls. How much of what is happening in Washington is actually creating a spark of anger or activism or support out in the country.
And I think Democrats at least believe, especially as conversations teeter around things like Medicaid and Social Security, that they have a real chance to make it a fight in the 2026 midterms. And I think if they're looking for a message, I think protecting things like that are going to be at the forefront of it.
Okay, we will leave it there for now.

And we will be back in your feeds Wednesday afternoon as normal. I'm Sarah McCammon.
I cover politics. I'm Asma Khalid.
I cover the White House. And I'm Susan Davis.
I also cover politics. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.
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