Congress

7 things to watch for during Trump’s joint address to Congress

Published

2 years ago

March 4, 2025

President Donald Trump shocked the nation eight years ago when his first joint address to Congress was, well, presidential.

There was none of what the president now likes to call his “weaves” — digressions from his prepared remarks and other tangents. There was no bashing of the media, no name-calling of his opponents. But Trump is not the man he was in 2017. Emboldened by his sweeping victory, and still seething over the persecution he believes he suffered when he was out of office, the president has more leeway this time around. What that will mean for his address to Congress on Tuesday is anybody’s guess at this point.

“TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.

The theme of Trump’s speech will be the “renewal of the American Dream,” and it will include sections on the economy, border security and foreign policy, Fox News reported ahead of the address. An outside political adviser to the president, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Blue Light News the president plans a heavy emphasis on immigration, with the invited guests expected to feature people whose family members were victims of crimes committed by undocumented migrants.

It is also widely expected that the slashing of the federal bureaucracy will come up in the president’s speech, as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency cuts have dominated his first month in office. And the president is expected to mention the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, with someone who was at the rally anticipated to attend, the adviser said.

But if he goes off script? All bets are off, and anyone could find themselves in the president’s crosshairs.

“He’s not a sweeping orator. He tends to be a tactical orator off the prompter, and that’s what I would anticipate,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who has been a vocal Trump defender on BLN and who was at one point considered for Trump’s press secretary post.

Here’s a look at what to watch for during the Tuesday night address, which begins at 9 p.m. ET.

1. How does Trump address people’s frustrations with high prices?

Trump wasn’t thrilled with talking about high prices on the campaign trail. He famously complained to his supporters at an Inauguration Day rally, “How many times can you say an apple has doubled in cost?”

That attitude has been borne out through his first month-plus in office, with the president spending more time talking about Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle the federal government and renaming the Gulf of America than he has about inflation. That focus on DOGE has made his allies increasingly uneasy.

Polling shows inflation and high prices remain the top issue Americans are concerned about, and many of them don’t think this administration is doing enough to address them. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 52 percent of respondents don’t think Trump is doing enough to help the economy and bring down prices, and the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plummeted to a 15-month low in February.

“Economy and illegal immigration. Those were, I believe, the two things that propelled Donald Trump to the White House for a second time, and he has to address both issues with the same verve,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “Ignore the voter discontent on the economy at your own peril.”

Expect the president to tout the U.S. manufacturing investments companies have made since he took office in January. That includes chip maker TSMC’s Monday announcement that it plans to invest $100 billion in U.S. chip plants, building on the $500 billion investment from Apple and the $27 billion investment from pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly announced last week. It’s a move that would echo the approach he took during his first address to Congress in 2017, when he touted investments from Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed Martin, Intel, Walmart and others.

The president’s allies argue that it’s been only a month, and that no one expected the economy to change overnight. And they say he is addressing the economy with tariffs aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and executive orders targeting domestic fossil fuel production, along with cuts to federal spending they argue will yield an economic benefit down the road by improving the country’s fiscal health and boosting the private sector.

But it’s unclear whether all of that will be enough to satisfy Americans who are still feeling the pinch of inflation on their wallets. And new tariffs, some of which took effect Tuesday, could make inflation even worse.

“Blanket tariffs make it more expensive to do business in America, driving up costs for consumers across the board,” former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued in a recent op-ed. “Broad-based tariffs could have long-term consequences right in our backyard.”

2. How much time does Trump spend talking about DOGE? And how does he frame Musk’s role?

Trump’s first month in office has been dominated by DOGE’s efforts to upend the federal bureaucracy, cut federal workers and unilaterally slash federal spending. Some of the president’s allies, however, fear DOGE is sucking up too much of the president’s time and attention and believe he should instead focus on passing an extension of his 2017 tax cuts, avoiding a government shutdown and addressing Americans’ concerns about inflation.

Keep an eye out for how much time the president spends talking about DOGE, as well as how he frames Musk’s role in it (a point that has been muddied over the last several weeks by the administration’s messaging both publicly and in court). Last week, administration officials confirmed that Amy Gleason, not Musk, is the administrator of DOGE, while Musk serves as a special adviser to the president.

President Donald Trump listens as Elon Musk speaks in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington.

Musk himself is set to attend the speech, a White House official, granted anonymity to share details of speech planning, said. (Whether he will wear what has become his uniform as of late — a “Dark MAGA” hat and a black “tech support” t-shirt — is unclear.)

3. How does Trump talk about the administration’s progress on mass deportations?

Immigration is one of the president’s favorite topics. During his inaugural address, he promised his administration would begin the work of deporting “millions and millions” of immigrants with criminal records. But immigration has taken an unusually low-profile role in the early weeks of his administration as officials have seen lower-than-hoped-for numbers of deportations — and Trump himself has been reportedly unhappy with the administration’s progress.

The administration has yet to release official, comprehensive deportation numbers. But a recent Reuters report, referencing unpublished DHS data, found that the U.S. deported 37,660 people during Trump’s first month in office. That’s down from a monthly average of 57,000 during the last year of the Biden administration, though administration officials have disputed the latter set of numbers as “artificially high” because of higher levels of illegal immigration.

But expect immigration to once again be in the spotlight on Tuesday night, the outside Trump adviser said. A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that immigration remains one of Americans’ top issues only behind inflation, with 81 percent of respondents supporting the deportation of immigrants who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes, including 70 percent of Democrats.

Trump is likely to focus on a second set of immigration metrics his administration considers more positive: plummeting border crossings. Trump announced on Truth Social over the weekend that 8,326 people were apprehended at the border in February, the lowest number in at least 25 years — and a fraction of the 29,000 people who were apprehended in January and the 47,000 detained in December. (It’s worth noting border crossings had already dropped significantly under Biden’s efforts to clamp down on asylum.)

Fox News reported the president will use the speech to push Congress to pass more border security funding to support deportations and border wall construction.

4. About that mineral deal with Ukraine …

The televised blowup between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday shocked much of the world and dashed hopes for a rare earth mineral deal that could have paved the way for a ceasefire. Trump, who in the run-up to the meeting had taken to social media to call Zelenskyy a “dictator,” accused the Ukrainian president of being ungrateful for U.S. support in the war and argued that he had “no cards” to play and was in “no position to make requests.”

Trump told reporters Monday afternoon that he would address whether that deal can be revived during the Tuesday night speech, saying that it would be “great” for the U.S. He’s also likely to address other hot-button foreign policy topics including the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and a new trade war with Canada and Mexico, after 25 percent tariffs on the countries took effect Tuesday.

Watch to see also how he talks about the leaders of U.S. adversaries, like China President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and those of its allies, like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron — and which ones he name-checks.

Other topics likely to come up: the Gulf of America, buying (or otherwise negotiating a deal with) Greenland for national security and critical mineral purposes, retaking the Panama Canal and — depending on how punchy the president is feeling toward the country’s neighbor to the north — making Canada the 51st state.

5. What’s his message to Congress?

Trump has made clear his desire to extend his 2017 tax cuts and boost border funding. But he’s largely left the details of how to do so up to Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He only dipped his toe into the reconciliation waters last week when the resolution Trump has referred to as “one big, beautiful bill” appeared to be heading for defeat in the House, making calls that persuaded some holdouts to switch their votes at the last minute.

He’s now expected to use the address to push for increased border funding, though it’s unclear whether he plans to also use the speech to press for his tax cuts and urge Congress to avoid a government shutdown later this month.

“I do think there’s an opportunity here for him to stand in front of the Republican majority and say, ‘Okay, you know, this doesn’t have to be hard. I don’t want to have to do this the hard way. I want to do this the easy way. So let’s do that,’” Jennings said. “It wouldn’t bother me if he told the Republicans in that room, ‘Look, my agenda is your agenda. That’s what people voted for. So I need you to join me here, and we’re going to do something amazing together.’”

6. What doesn’t Trump talk about?

Eight years ago, during his first address to Congress, Trump promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. It turned out to be an ill-fated effort that consumed much of the president’s first year in office before it died a sputtering death. Now, such a proposal isn’t even remotely on the table, though cuts to state Medicaid programs are.

Another topic not expected to come up: abortion. This was Trump’s Achilles’ heel on the campaign trail, and while appointing the Supreme Court justices key to overturning Roe v. Wade is one of the most notable accomplishments from the president’s first term in office, it is not something he wants to spend a lot of, if any, time talking about during his second. (He didn’t even talk about it during that first address in 2017.)

Also, the Bible. It seems unlikely that Trump will reference Scripture as he did during his first joint address, in which he paraphrased John 15:13: “There is no greater act of love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” His second administration has overall taken a more secular turn from his first, trading faith for “common sense” in its new culture war.

7. How do the Democrats respond?

Democrats are looking to use Trump’s speech to highlight the impacts of his second-term policies.

Democratic lawmakers were all encouraged to bring guests who were affected either by DOGE or the House GOP’s budget. They’ve rolled out guests like union leaders, laid-off government workers, people who could be affected by cuts to Medicaid and people affected by the federal funding freeze. Internal party messaging guidance directed lawmakers to unite around a message that said “Trump and Republicans in Congress stand with Elon Musk and billionaire donors.”

It’s part of a less pugilistic stance towards Trump’s speech that will be just as much about his administration and Musk as it could be about the president.

Democrats aren’t expecting a mass boycott like in previous years, nor are major organized protests gaining traction. Some in the party said that they wanted to be present for the speech to show that Trump still faced opposition from inside the chamber.

Still, the Democratic Women’s Caucus is expected to wear pink in protest (in past years, they wore white to honor the suffragettes). And House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, in a “Dear Colleague” letter Monday evening, announced several pre- and post-speech events, including a gathering of House Democrats on the Capitol steps on Wednesday morning “for an event featuring the voices of the American people.”

Jake Traylor and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.

Congress

Democrats drop $5M into Kansas Senate race

Published

3 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Democrats’ top super PAC is pushing into Kansas.

The Chuck Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is launching a $5 million statewide television ad blitz starting Saturday through Election Day — the latest sign that Democrats believe the Senate map is shifting onto red turf.

SMP had signaled in recent days it could get involved in the race, telling Blue Light News late last month it was “actively thinking” about whether to wade into the state where Democrats haven’t won a Senate seat in nearly a century but where Adam Hamilton narrowly leads GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in recent polls. Internal SMP polling that found an increasingly competitive race factored into the group’s decision to spend. It will also run digital ads.

“The gap is closing in Kansas,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring families understand Marshall’s real record of making health care and basic goods more expensive for working Kansans.”

Republicans are scrambling to shore up Marshall. Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super PAC aligned with Republican leadership, has booked over $10 million in ads through Election Day in the state, per ad tracking firm AdImpact.

SMP’s first ad attacks Marshall for joining Senate Republicans in voting to table a Democratic-led amendment last year to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. The Senate later approved legislation to release the files by unanimous consent. It’s the latest in a slate of ads from Democrats hitting their Republican rivals over the late, disgraced financier and convicted sex offender. Marshall’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate Democrats’ plunge into the state comes as the midterm battle map is undergoing a major realignment. Georgia and North Carolina — primed to be two of the cycle’s premiere battlegrounds — are tilting left to the point where national Republicans are retracting spending in both states and Democrats are starting to follow suit, freeing funds on both sides to shift elsewhere.

Republicans are racing to reinforce incumbents across what was once safer red turf. SLF has also pledged $5 million to bolster Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina.

Democrats, meanwhile, are starting to spend more in red states. SMP has dropped over $2 million on digital ads in Texas. Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has included Kansas and Mississippi in his pitches to donors.

Congress

House Democratic campaign arm says it needs $17 million, and fast

Published

4 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is begging for resources, and setting a hard deadline for donors to give $17 million in order to compete in a handful of districts that Republicans carried easily in 2024.

DCCC Executive Director Julie Merz said the committee needs the cash influx by Oct. 22 in order to “to take advantage of the opportunities we have” outside of the core battlefield, according to a memo shared with donors on Friday and obtained by POLITICO.

If they don’t pony up, Merz warns, the party “could be leaving winnable races on the table.”

Democrats have been clear that they have a fundraising disadvantage this cycle, but they have so far been reluctant to place a specific dollar amount on their needs, making the DCCC’s memo Friday a particularly surprising outlier.

“Here’s the tough reality though: the Republican ecosystem has amassed a massive war chest that is significantly greater than ours and is spending it,” Merz says in the memo after arguing that the members of the committee “remain confident that we will win back the majority in 25 days.”

Specifically, Merz dedicates significant portions of the memo to four districts where the committee is desperate for more money in order to compete — all of which President Donald Trump won by double-digit margins in 2024:

— Florida’s 27th District (Trump +14.6)

— Nevada’s 2nd District (Trump +13.9)

— South Carolina’s 1st District (Trump +13)

— New York’s 21st District (Trump +20.7)

The fundraising disadvantage has created headaches for both House and Senate Democrats over where, exactly, to deploy the resources they do have.

The committee tells donors that their internal polling shows all of those races within reach, but that Republicans’ big cash advantages — especially in the Trump-aligned super PAC MAGA Inc. — will make it harder to win those and other reach seats.

Merz also name drops a handful of other deep-red districts that are “worthy of additional investment in this environment,” including seats held by GOP Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.) and Richard Hudson (R-N.C.), the chair of the Republican National Congressional Committee.

The NRCC was quick to mock the DCCC’s memo.

“No amount of money fixes candidates voters don’t want. These seats are staying red, and Republicans are on offense across the map,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said in a statement.

Congress

Capitol agenda: How Warren could link arms with Trump’s GOP

Published

10 hours ago

October 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Elizabeth Warren may get her clearest shot yet to take on corporate America next year — thanks to the once unthinkable help of Republicans.

The Massachusetts Democrat is poised to chair Senate Banking if the party takes back the chamber. And while the progressive has long been a boogeyman to corporate America, lobbyists worry she’ll have powerful backup thanks to the surge of populist Republicans eager to take big swings at Wall Street and Big Tech.

One longtime financial industry lobbyist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said Warren “has a streak that is not just wanting to be a progressive gadfly, but to actually reach across the aisle to push for policy ideas.” There is “absolutely” reason for concern, the person said.

Atop the panel, Warren would also have a strong position to shape the 2028 presidential debates on both sides.

“There’s very little doubt that the agenda of the Senate Banking Committee is going to overlap substantially with the core issues that the candidates in the 2028 election cycle are going to be grappling with,” said Dennis Kelleher, the outgoing leader of the progressive group Better Markets.

As Banking chair, Warren is expected to try to recruit Republicans in a crackdown on artificial intelligence — specifically restrictions on chip giant Nvidia’s exports to China, which already has some GOP support — and a follow-up of this year’s bipartisan housing law that sought to rein in private equity’s role in the market, according to people close to the senator.

Some of President Donald Trump’s own populist ideas, like credit card interest rate caps and limits on stock buybacks for defense contractors, would provide fertile ground for Warren.

But Trump would also likely be Warren’s biggest obstacle, as he’s been resistant to embrace policy overlaps with her. He’s also been resistant to any AI restrictions.

Warren’s approach also threatens to expose rifts between GOP populists who have been ascendent under Trump and more mainstream conservatives.

Asked about the possibility of a Chair Warren, Sen. Mike Rounds, a more moderate South Dakota Republican, said he doesn’t “think anything would get done except lots of investigations and lots of accusations.”

What else we’re watching:

— LAWMAKERS CLAMOR FOR GAO v. TRUMP — Lawmakers are desperate for a government watchdog to step up and help them in their fight against the Trump administration over control of federal cash. The independent Government Accountability Office concluded earlier this week that the White House illegally withheld more than $1 billion for education and health care research programs — the latest in more than a half-dozen such findings GAO has published since the start of Trump’s second term. But the agency has yet to use its unique power to take the president to court to challenge those “impoundments,” and lawmakers who are tired of the administration running roughshod over their funding prerogatives want GAO to act.

— MURPHY’S DEFENSE FUNDING ULTIMATUM — Democrats should not approve Pentagon funding or the annual defense policy bill if they control Congress next year unless those bills would hasten the end of the Iran war, Sen. Chris Murphy told reporters Thursday. “We should make the end of the war a priority,” said the Foreign Relations Democrat who was returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Murphy also accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and officials of attempting a “cover-up” of the war’s damage and obscuring its true cost after he was denied entry on a base in Qatar. Given the damage to bases in the region, Murphy also told reporters that the U.S. should “reconsider its footprint” in the Middle East.

Jasper Goodman, Jennifer Scholtes and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.