Trump to lay out second-term vision in address to Congress
Donald Trump will deliver his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, where he is expected to lay out his second-term vision after a radical start that has dramatically reshaped both domestic and foreign policy.
Trump’s address, which will begin at 9pm ET from the chamber of the House of Representatives, marks his first major speech six weeks into a presidency that has seen the president empowering Elon Musk to dramatically downsize the federal workforce, threatening American’s allies with tariffs and coddling longtime American foes.
His administration has initiated sweeping mass layoffs of federal employees, mobilized officers from nearly every federal law enforcement agency and the US military to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations, and rattled Europe with his pursuit of a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine on terms preferential to Moscow.
Trump is also preparing to announce a minerals deal with Ukraine in his address this evening, according to a report, despite his advisers cautioning that a deal has yet to be signed and that the situation could be changed.
Key events
As you can see from the images in the previous post, dozens of Democratic members of congress will be wearing pink to Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress tonight.
Teresa Leger Fernández, who chairs the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said wearing pink is meant to call attention to Trump’s administration “negatively impacting women and families.”
“Women are claiming pink as a color of protest, as a color of power, and we are protesting what is happening right now,” Leger Fernández said earlier on Tuesday.
Members of Congress and their guests have begun arriving at the Capitol ahead of Donald Trump’s address, which is scheduled to begin at 9pm ET.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrives before President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress. Photograph: Ben Curtis/AP
Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, said the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.
Miller told CNN in an interview earlier today:
I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States.
“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said a rare earths minerals deal with Ukraine was not on the table, despite reports that Donald Trump is preparing to announce the signing of the deal tonight.
Asked if the deal was still on the table, Bessent told CBS “not at present”.
Meanwhile, the UK’s ministry of defense said defense minister John Healey will meet his US counterpart, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, in Washington on Thursday to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine.
In an extraordinary turnaround, Ukraine and the US reportedly appear to be close to signing a critical minerals deal that the White House has indicated is a precursor to peace talks.
At a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, Donald Trump is expected to propose plans to “restore peace around the world”. A White House official told Fox News he would “lay out his plans to end the war in Ukraine”, as well as plans to negotiate the release of hostages held in Gaza, the outlet reported.
Ukraine and the US were supposed to sign a minerals deal that would have resulted in the US investing in Ukraine’s underdeveloped minerals and mining sector, a deal that fell through after a disastrous meeting between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Trump has said the presence of US workers in Ukraine would be enough to deter Russian president Vladimir Putin from future acts of aggression, with no further security promises needed.
Kyiv was ready to sign the deal “in any time and in any convenient format”, Zelenskyy said on Tuesday. “We see this agreement as a step toward greater security and solid security guarantees, and I truly hope it will work effectively,” he wrote.
Trump to announce US-Ukraine minerals deal in tonight’s address – report
Donald Trump hopes to announce a minerals deal with Ukraine in his address to Congress tonight, according to Reuters.
Sources told the news agency that Trump has told his advisers he wants to announce the agreement in tonight’s address. They cautioned that the deal had yet to be signed and the situation could change.
The signing of the deal fell through after a disastrous meeting between Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, at the Oval Office on Friday.
During the meeting, Trump warned Zelenskyy was “gambling with world war three” and told the Ukrainian president to come back “when he is ready for peace”. Trump’s vice-president, JD Vance, accused Zelenskyy of being not “acting at all thankful” for American assistance.
On Monday, the Trump administration suspended delivery of all US military aid to Ukraine, blocking billions in crucial shipments. The decision affects deliveries of ammunition, vehicles and other equipment, including shipments agreed to when Joe Biden was president.
Zelenskyy, in an attempt to mend fences with Washington, said earlier on Tuesday that he was “ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible”.
Donald Trump’s speech tonight at the front of the House chamber will look just like a State of the Union, but it will actually be a joint address to Congress.
Trump, like all presidents going back to Ronald Reagan, have given an address to Congress early in their term.
The US Constitution requires that the president “from time to time” updates Congress and recommends policies. It does not specify precisely when that address should take place.
Usually, presidents will deliver those remarks in January or February. The message used to be known as “the President’s Annual Message to Congress”, and Franklin D Roosevelt began referring to it in 1934 as the “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union.”
Shortly after he was sworn in for his first term in 1981, Reagan addressed a joint session of Congress, remarks that were called “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery”.
Protesters gathered at parks, statehouses and other public ground across the country on Tuesday to demonstrate against Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.
The rallies and marches were set in motion by the 50501 Movement, a volunteer-driven group organized in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration.
Here are some images from events scheduled throughout the day.
One in three Americans approve of Donald Trump’s handling of the cost of living, a sign of unease as he enacts steep tariffs on imports that are stoking inflation worries, according to a new survey.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Trump’s approval ratings below 40% on a range of issues, including the economy, foreign policy and corruption. The notable exception was his 49% approval rating on immigration policy.
The poll showed that 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living, a marginal three percentage point decline from 34% in a previous poll.
On Trump’s plan to condition Washington’s support for Kyiv on a US-Ukraine minerals deal, 46% of respondents supported conditioning US aid on minerals wealth, compared to 50% who opposed the idea.
Despite Trump appearing to blame Ukraine for starting the war, 70% of respondents – including three-quarters of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans – agreed that Russia was more to blame than Ukraine for starting the war.
Some 59% of respondents said they supported the idea of downsizing the federal government, although only 40% of poll respondents said they backed firing tens of thousands of federal workers.
Democrats to bring fired federal workers to Trump speech
Joseph Gedeon
Democrats have invited several workers who were fired in Donald Trump’s mass purge of the federal government to attend, in an attempt to embarrass Trump over the unbridled assault on the federal bureaucracy.
Fired federal workers will include Alissa Ellman, a disabled veteran recently dismissed from the Buffalo veterans affairs office, who will attend as Senate leader Chuck Schumer’s guest.
Michael Missal, the former inspector general for the Department of Veterans Affairs, was invited by Connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal.
Jason King, a disabled veteran fired from the Federal Aviation Administration’s safety division, will be a guest of Senator Tim Kaine.
Andrew Lennox, a Marine veteran removed from a VA hospital administration role, was invited by Senator Elissa Slotkin.
Elissa Slotkin, the newly-elected Michigan senator, will give the Democratic party’s rebuttal to Donald Trump’s address to Congress.
It’s a high-profile platform for the 48-year-old former CIA analyst, who won a competitive Senate seat in November.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said Slotkin will “offer a bold vision of hope, unity, and a brighter future for everyone, not just the wealthy few at the top”.
In a social media post, Slotkin said she was “looking forward to speaking directly to the American people next week”.
The public expects leaders to level with them on what’s actually happening in our country. From our economic security to our national security, we’ve got to chart a way forward that actually improves people’s lives in the country we all love, and I’m looking forward to laying that out.
Several Democratic lawmakers to boycott Trump’s speech
Several Democrats in both chambers of Congress are planning to boycott Donald Trump’s address tonight.
Senator Patty Murray from Washington, one of the most senior Democratic senators, will not attend Trump’s speech. Oregon senator Ron Wyden plans to instead host an online town hall.
Senator Martin Heinrich from New Mexico also said he would be boycotting Trump’s speech. “This White House, this president, is so radically out of bounds for what is normal that I felt it was important to make that point,” Heinrich said.
New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she will also not be attending, as has two lawmakers representing Virginia, congressmen Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer.
Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, said Donald Trump and Elon Musk are “destroying the state of the union.”
“I don’t need to be there to watch him claim otherwise,” Mfume said.
According to Axios, some Democratic lawmakers are considering walking out during specific moments of the speech, particularly during comments about transgender children, while others plan more subtle demonstrations – from wearing coordinated colors like pink or black to sitting stone-faced and refusing to applaud.
Who is on Trump’s guest list?
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, will preside over the joint session, alongside vice-president JD Vance, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.
The carefully curated guest list, assembled by the White House and congressional leaders, appears like a roadmap for a competing cultural vision, touching on everything from transgender athletes, immigration and the federal worker purge – each with a story to tell.
The first lady, Melania Trump, will host Allyson and Lauren Phillips, mother and sister of Laken Riley, a college student allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan migrant.
Alongside them will sit Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter was killed by undocumented immigrants last June.
Two guests will underscore the administration’s hard line on transgender issues: Payton McNabb, a high school volleyball player who claims to have sustained a concussion from a transgender athlete, and January Littlejohn, a parent who sued a school board over gender identity transitions.
Johnson has invited rightwing commentators Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, alongside Riley Gaines, an activist who has campaigned against transgender participation in women’s sports.
The House oversight committee chairman James Comer and the judiciary committee chairman Jim Jordan will host IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.
But the biggest name coming out of Trump’s camp is so-called “department of government efficiency” leader Elon Musk, who has become more and more unpopular by the week. He will be in the House chamber as a living emblem of the administration’s most aggressive governance strategy that has the potential to cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs across the country.
The theme of Donald Trump’s address to Congress will be the “renewal of the American dream”, the White House said.
House speaker Mike Johnson formally invited Trump to speak to Congress in January.
In his letter, Johnson invited the president to share his “America First vision for our legislative future”.
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, said:
It’s an opportunity for President Trump, as only he can, to lay out the last month of record-setting, record-breaking, unprecedented achievements and accomplishments.
How to watch Trump’s address to Congress
Donald Trump’s address to Congress will begin at 9pm ET on Tuesday 4 March in Washington DC.
He will deliver remarks from the chamber of the House of Representatives.
Major news networks are likely to broadcast the address live. PBS will carry a live stream on its YouTube page.
Trump to lay out second-term vision in address to Congress
Donald Trump will deliver his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, where he is expected to lay out his second-term vision after a radical start that has dramatically reshaped both domestic and foreign policy.
Trump’s address, which will begin at 9pm ET from the chamber of the House of Representatives, marks his first major speech six weeks into a presidency that has seen the president empowering Elon Musk to dramatically downsize the federal workforce, threatening American’s allies with tariffs and coddling longtime American foes.
His administration has initiated sweeping mass layoffs of federal employees, mobilized officers from nearly every federal law enforcement agency and the US military to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations, and rattled Europe with his pursuit of a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine on terms preferential to Moscow.
Trump is also preparing to announce a minerals deal with Ukraine in his address this evening, according to a report, despite his advisers cautioning that a deal has yet to be signed and that the situation could be changed.
