Key takeaways from Trump’s address to joint session of Congress
Donald Trump spoke for a record-breaking hour and 40 minutes during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, during which he declared that “America is back” and outlined his accomplishment in the first weeks of his second term.
Here are some of the key takeaways from his speech:
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Trump touted his administration’s “swift and unrelenting action” and boasted that he had signed nearly 100 executive orders and more than 400 executive actions since taking office six weeks ago. He boasted that he withdrew the US out of the Paris Climate Accord, the World Health Organization and the UN human rights council.
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Trump called his predecessor, Joe Biden, the worst US president in history and criticized Democrats for failing to recognize his accomplishments. “There is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy,” he said. He blamed Biden for the soaring price of eggs.
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Trump praised the work of his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, who has led his administration’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government through his so-called “department of government efficiency”. He warned that workers who resisted his administration’s policies would be fired.
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Trump said the US would take “historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths” and said he was working “tirelessly” to end the “savage conflict in Ukraine”. He read from a letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy he received earlier in the day, which said Kyiv is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer”.
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Trump vowed a tit-for-tat retaliation hours after he launched a trade war against three of the US’s top trading partners: Mexico, Canada and China. “Whatever they tariff us, we tariff them,” he said, adding a caveat that “there’ll be a little disturbance … it won’t be much”.
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Trump said his administration was in the process of “reclaiming the Panama Canal” and repeated his threat to take control of Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He pledged to put an American flag on the planet Mars.
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House speaker Mike Johnson ordered Texas representative Al Green, a vocal advocate for civil rights and presidential accountability, removed from the House chamber after the congressman repeatedly interrupted Trump’s address, shouting: “He has no mandate.” Other Democrats protested Trump’s speech by holding up signs or walking out of the chamber.
Key events
Donald Trump’s motorcade has left the Capitol and is headed back to the White House.
Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin, delivering the Democratic rebuttal to Donald Trump’s speech, said Trump had not laid out a credible plan to tackle the rise in grocery and home prices.
Slotkin said the state of the country’s democracy is “worth fighting for”. “It’s easy to be exhausted, but America needs you now more than ever,” she said.
“We’ve gone through periods of political instability before,” she said. “Ultimately, we’ve chosen to keep changing this country for the better.”
‘Trump would have lost us the Cold War’: Slotkin presents Democrats’ rebuttal
Elissa Slotkin, the Democratic senator from Michigan, has issued the Democratic party’s response to Donald Trump’s speech.
Slotkin said 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,” she said.
Referencing Trump’s public clash with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Slotkin said the scene in the Oval Office on Friday “wasn’t just a bad episode of reality TV.”
“It summed up Trump’s approach to the world,” she said. “He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends like the Canadians in the teeth.”
“As a Cold War kid, I’m thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s. Trump would have lost us the Cold War,” she said.
Trump sets record for longest address to joint session of Congress
Donald Trump’s address tonight lasted about an hour and 40 minutes, easily setting the record for the longest address to a joint session of Congress.
The previous record was set by Bill Clinton, who spoke for an hour and 28 minutes during his State of the Union address in 2000, according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, issued a statement shortly after Donald Trump finished his address.
“Tonight, President Trump made his triumphant return to Congress to share his bold, optimistic vision for renewing the American Dream,” Johnson said.
After four years of President Biden’s disastrous policies, President Trump has seized the moment and moved rapidly to deliver on the promise of restoring American greatness.
He said Trump’s achievements since returning to the White House “prove that America First policies make America stronger, safer and more prosperous.”
Johnson adds that House Republicans “look forward” to working with Trump to deliver “record-setting success” for the American people.
Donald Trump has finished his address to a joint session of Congress, and is shaking hands with his supporters as he slowly exits the chamber.
House speaker Mike Johnson declares that the session has now been dissolved.
Fact-check: Trump’s claim on amount of US aid to Ukraine
Robert Mackey
Fact-check: Trump, again, wrongly states that the United States has given Ukraine $350 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and that Europe has given just $100 billion.
In fact, as our colleagues Jakub Krupa and Pjotr Sauer reported last month, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker shows that Europe – counted as the sum of the EU and individual member states – has allocated nearly $138 billion in help for Ukraine, and the US just $120bn. When the contributions from non EU countries, like the United Kingdom, are included, Europe’s share is even larger.
Last week, three visiting world leaders corrected Trump on this false statement while sitting next to him in the Oval Office: the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump pledges to ‘plant the American flag on Mars’
Trump says it is time for America to take its destiny into its own hands.
He says he will lead the nation to forge “the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this earth.”
He says America will “conquer the vast frontiers of science” and “lead humanity into space” and “plant the American flag on the planet Mars and even far beyond”.
“My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden age of America has only just begun. It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before,” he says, concluding his address to Congress.
Democratic congressman Maxwell Frost from Florida has explained his decision to walk out of Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.
Frost took off his suit jacket during the middle of Trump’s address to show that he was wearing a T-shirt that read “No Kings Live Here”. In a statement, Frost said:
Donald Trump is many things – a liar, a grifter, a wanna-be-dictator – but no matter how hard he tries and how many Republicans in Congress bend the knee and kiss the ring: he will never be king.
Tonight, the American people saw a desperate liar stand in front of a podium and spit out excuse after excuse as to why he hasn’t been able to make your life better. Why he can’t make eggs cheaper, why he can’t lower housing costs, why the stock market is tanking under his watch, why innocent immigrants and trans people are to blame. All lies.
The people of this country are seeing right through the lies. We won’t let up.
Trump says he “appreciated” the letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
He says that “simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussions with Russia”.
He says the US has received “strong signals” from Moscow that it is “ready for peace”.
“Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” he asks. “It’s time to end the senseless war.”
Trump calls Middle East a ‘rough neighbourhood’ and says he received Zelenskyy’s letter
Trump says “a lot of things are happening” in the Middle East, and describes it as a “rough neighbourhood”.
He says he is working “tirelessly” to end the “savage conflict” in Ukraine.
“Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict with no end in sight,” he says.
He says he received an “important” letter from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy earlier today which said Kyiv is “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible”.
Zelenskyy has told him that his team stands ready to work “under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts”, Trump says.
Trump says Zelenskyy’s letter states that he “really do[es] value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence”.
“Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you,” Zelenskyy’s letter reads, Trump says.
Robert Mackey
Fact-check: Trump wrongly claimed that one of his invited guests, January Littlejohn from Tallahassee, Florida, had discovered that her 13-year-old child’s middle school had secretly socially transitioned her from female to non-binary.
While Littlejohn made that case in a lawsuit, the suit was dismissed by a federal judge, and emails obtained by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper showed that Littlejohn had written to the school in 2020 to notify a teacher that her child wanted to change pronouns.
The emails showed that Littlejohn worked with a teacher to determine how best to navigate the situation, and thanked the teacher for their help.
