Congress
Trump, disruptor-in-chief, touts upheaval
President Donald Trump declared the far-reaching, disruptive actions of his first 40 days in office as the first wave of a “common sense revolution,” blaming Democrats during his joint address to Congress on Tuesday for lingering problems and claiming credit for a wrecking ball approach that is roiling Washington and the world.
“America’s momentum is back,” Trump said in a stemwinder that lasted an hour and 40 minutes. “Our spirit is back. Our pride is back.”
While most presidents use such addresses to tout new programs, unveil ambitious initiatives or whip legislation, Trump offered a laundry list of all that he had obliterated — pacts with foreign governments, regulations, diversity initiatives.
Boasting about his early flurry of executive orders, Trump said that everything — withdrawing the U.S. from climate treaties, the World Health Organization and the UN human rights council; slashing the federal government, freezing regulations and all foreign aid — was an effort “to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth.”
“The people elected me to do the job, and I’m doing it,” he continued, declaring it a “a time for big dreams and bold action.”
On a day that saw the stock markets dip following Trump’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico — and in the midst of a high-stakes diplomatic staredown with Ukraine that has allies anxious — Trump promised that it was all part of a plan to enrich the country and force neighbors to crack down on the drug trade.
“My administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. And we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” Trump said. “The media and our friends in the Democrat party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”
Trump last year urged Republicans to thwart a bipartisan border bill to deny former President Joe Biden a win, just months before the election. His taunting of his predecessor typified a speech that was full of all the familiar Trumpian self-congratulation, hyperbole and withering partisan attacks.
Trashing the man who defeated him in 2020 as “the worst president in American history,” Trump blamed his predecessor for illegal immigration, stubborn inflation and, specifically, the high price of eggs, and said his first month in office is the best ever. “Do you know who number two is?” Trump asked. “George Washington.”
Opening his speech by recounting his victory in last November’s election, Trump drew shouts and protests from the Democratic side of the aisle. One lawmaker, Rep. Al Green, (D-Tex.), was removed from the chamber after continuing to shout back at the president in protest of the Republican plan to cut Medicaid.
Trump groused that there was “nothing I can do” to make Democrats “stand or smile or applaud” him, claiming that his victory amounted to a “mandate like has not been seen in many decades.”
Describing the Republicans’ reconciliation bill as a package of “tax cuts for everybody,” he sarcastically suggested that Democrats should vote for the proposal they have derided as a giveaway for corporations and the wealthy.
“I’m sure you’re going to vote for those tax cuts because otherwise I don’t think the people will ever vote you into office,” Trump said.
His dismissal of the opposition party, who he needled and mocked throughout the speech, prompting several Democrats to walk out of the House chamber mid-speech, came as Republicans may need Democratic votes to avoid a government shutdown. And it underscored an inclination that has thus far defined Trump’s second term — an even greater indifference to countenancing establishment views or bipartisan buy-in for his MAGA agenda.
While declaring that lowering costs for families was his top priority, Trump devoted only a few lines to the subject. Claiming he was “working hard” to get the price of eggs back down, he implied that the job was in the hands of his secretary of Agriculture, who he addressed directly like he might have done in a boardroom scene from ‘The Apprentice.’
“Secretary, do a good job on that one,” he said, pointing at Brooke Rollins.
He continued with the reality-show style theater throughout the speech, signing an executive order renaming a wildlife refuge after a woman who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant, naming a pediatric cancer patient in the balcony an honorary Secret Service agent and admitting a star student, also in attendance, into West Point.
Trump devoted more time to defending his and Elon Musk’s chainsaw-styled slasher approach to reducing the size of the federal bureaucracy. After thanking Musk, who he described as “the head of DOGE (the Dept. of Government Efficiency),” Trump drew laughs as he listed several of the aid programs he had cut: “a $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish; monitoring, $1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia; $14 million for social cohesion in Mali; $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.”
And he mischaracterized “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program,” suggesting that payments were being made to thousands of deceased individuals, a debunked claim that Trump has made repeatedly.
Musk, who attended the address Tuesday night, has had to scramble to rehire several of the critical employees he indiscriminately fired, including those who oversee the country’s nuclear weapons. And the tech billionaire has acknowledged making a number of mistakes. But Trump framed DOGE’s work as part of his economic agenda.
“By slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft we can find, we will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of American families,” Trump said.
He also touted $1.7 billion in new investments in America since he took office and defended the controversial approach with tariffs that has shaken the stock market and angered allies in Canada and Mexico. Trump demanded that those countries “do much more” to tackle the flow of illegal drugs to America, which he has used as his rationale for the tariffs — despite almost no fentanyl having entered the U.S. from Canada.
In a nod to the political risk of those policies, Trump spoke directly to American farmers, who required a $29 billion bailout by Trump following tariffs in his first term. But he offered no specifics. “I love the farmer,” he declared. “Our farmers are going to have a field day right now.”
Tariffs, Trump said, “are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There will be a little disturbance. But we’re okay with that. It won’t be much.”
Losses on the major stock indexes this week following Trump’s imposition of 25 percent tariffs on Canada and Mexico wiped out all gains for the S&P 500 since Election Day.
Turning to foreign policy some 80 minutes into his speech, Trump returned to the brash imperialism outlined in his inaugural address, vowing to wrest control of the Panama Canal away from the Chinese and suggesting that a looming independence vote in Greenland would ultimately result in the U.S. taking it away from Denmark.
“One way or the other we’re going to get it,” Trump said.
He blamed Biden for the messy 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the war in Gaza that he said wouldn’t have happened on his watch and for spending too much money backing Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Just more than 24 hours after pausing all U.S. military aid to Ukraine in an effort to pressure President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sign an economic agreement with the U.S. and engage in peace talks with Russia, Trump read a letter Zelenskyy wrote him Tuesday expressing regret over last week’s blow-up in the Oval Office and desire to achieve peace.
“I appreciate that he sent this letter,” Trump said, offering nothing further about whether the agreement to share profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals was still on the table.
He criticized Europe for spending more on Russian energy than aid to Ukraine and called out Democrats — and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, in particular — for criticizing his approach of pressuring Ukraine while accepting a number of Russian conditions and even parroting Kremlin talking points.
“Do you want to keep it going for another five years?” he said, looking at the Democratic side and keying on Warren. “Yeah, yeah, you would say — Pocahontas says yes.”
Senate Republicans are hopeful they will be able to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general by the end of the week. But he’s not in the clear yet, as several undecided GOP senators continue to mull it over.
Blanche’s prospects were nonetheless much improved Monday — less than 24 hours after some GOP senators were predicting he was unlikely to get confirmed as a war of words escalated between President Donald Trump and holdout Republicans.
But then Blanche cut a deal with Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) late Sunday night to clarify a controversial settlement between Trump and the IRS, giving Blanche the votes he needed to get through the Judiciary Committee Tuesday.
He still needs to get through the full Senate, where he can only lose two Republican votes given likely unified opposition from Senate Democrats and Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell’s absence.
Several GOP senators who raised alarms last week about Trump’s public threats to rekindle the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” Cornyn and Tillis worked to kill declined to say Monday how they’d vote on Blanche.But in a positive sign for the acting attorney general, several are looking to Tillis and Cornyn, who are now supporting him, as a lodestar for their own deliberations ahead of likely floor votes later this week.
“I think certainly the fact that he has signed this order, basically disbanding [the fund] — that’s a pretty good step,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), before adding that she would “like to find out a little bit more about the negotiations.”
Murkowski said she plans to speak with Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’m curious about what went on over the weekend,” she said.
Blanche has made efforts to ingratiate himself with Murkowski. In July, he trekked to Alaska, in part at Murkowski’s urging, to better understand public safety and tribal jurisdiction matters. He recently announced a nine-figure settlement benefiting Alaska natives’ health care that Murkowski was pleased with.
“I just appreciated the fact that he went to the state,” Murkowski said. “He was only there for two days, but I had asked him in my initial meeting to go up to the state.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who like Cornyn lost his primary earlier this year to a Trump-backed challenger, declined to discuss Blanche Monday. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) added that she also wanted to talk to Tillis and Cornyn and read the agreement they struck with Blanche.
“Until I do that, I am not going to make a judgement,” Collins said.
Another Republican who hasn’t yet committed to supporting Blanche is Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah). He met with Blanche last week but hasn’t yet weighed in since Sunday night’s agreement. He had indicated before Sunday’s deal that he would be closely tracking Tillis and Cornyn during Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting.
Getting Blanche’s nomination on a trajectory to pass the Senate this week would relieve some of the pressure on Senate Republicans, who are juggling a long to-do list and a shrinking runway to get it done. Trump, amid last week’s standoff, demanded that Senate Republicans confirm Blanche, including warning during a Cabinet meeting that they “will never get anybody like him.”
Tillis told reporters Monday that “the back-and-forth over the weekend was not helpful” but that the talks “ended up at an acceptable place.”
If Blanche gets out of the Judiciary Committee Tuesday as expected, the soonest the Senate could confirm him as attorney general is Saturday unless Democrats unanimously agree to help speed up a final vote.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday that he’s hopeful the Senate will be able to confirm Blanche but didn’t give an ironclad guarantee as the remaining undecided members review the agreement and talk to Tillis and Cornyn.
“I’d like to figure out a way, a path forward to get him done,” Thune said.
Democrats are likely to use Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee meeting, and the days leading up to a full Senate vote, to hammer Republicans over the deal Cornyn and Tillis struck. Many predicted Monday that Trump wouldn’t stick by the agreement that limits the scope of the IRS settlement and nullifies the $1.8 billion payout fund.
“There are so many loopholes. I wouldn’t be surprised if the president went ahead with the program,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) warned the remaining undecided Republicans about the deal: “I don’t think that that commitment is worth what it’s written on.”
While Democrats can drag Blanche’s confirmation into the weekend, they aren’t able to prevent him from being confirmed if at least 50 GOP senators support him. But they are determined to use the debate to hit at one of their central midterm campaign messages — corruption — with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calling Blanche the “architect of Trump’s grifts.”
Tillis suggested Monday he still has questions about who in Trump’s orbit played a role in the roller coaster negotiations over the past week. While the retiring senator is prepared to support Blanche, he said that he’s “not done analyzing the anatomy of this deal and who played a role in there.”
“I’m not going to speak for other members, but I think that it’ll be a solid vote,” he added about Blanche’s chances of being confirmed.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who appeared skeptical during a Sunday morning talk show interview that Blanche would get through the Senate, did a 180 Monday when asked whether he would get confirmed: “Yes, I do.”
Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
Multiple Senate Republicans joined Sen. Bernie Moreno in calling for Rep. Max Miller to step down from office Monday amid domestic abuse allegations from the Ohio senator’s daughter.
Bernie Moreno — father of Miller’s ex-wife, Emily Moreno — said in a statement Sunday that Miller should not serve in the House soon after the House Republican did a livestream video attempting to defend himself from abuse accusations.
Many of Bernie Moreno’s GOP colleagues were quick to back him following the statement.
“I don’t know [Miller]. I haven’t read a whole lot about him, but if [Moreno] thinks he ought to resign, I’m supportive of that,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia said in an interview.
Miller has denied the allegations, which include pouring hot water on his ex-wife and holding a gun to her head. He has also denied accusations from his ex-wife that he broke his daughter’s collarbone.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas condemned Miller, adding, “He should resign. He should quit.”
“I don’t know Mr. Miller’s story, but I trust Bernie so much as a good friend, and his family has such high values,” Marshall said in an interview. “I couldn’t imagine them wanting this out in public. So to go through with this, it makes me think that they’re telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
The surge of support from Bernie Moreno’s Senate colleagues marks the first significant crack in a wall of GOP silence regarding the allegations against Miller. The skepticism from Miller’s own party will almost certainly weigh down the congressman’s already floundering campaign as he battles Democratic candidate Brian Poindexter to keep his Cleveland-area House seat.
Miller has until Wednesday to withdraw from the ballot and allow a crash primary to select a replacement.
Some Republican lawmakers stopped short of calling on Miller to withdraw or resign while expressing grave concern about the allegations.
“The accusations are very serious, and if there is truth to them, I am one who says that our elected officials need to be held to high standards,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said. “And certainly, when it comes to allegations of domestic abuse, child abuse, that’s not what we want in our lawmakers.”
A spokesperson for Miller did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to Moreno’s statement, Miller said on Sunday, “If my daughter said the same thing to me, I personally wouldn’t wait two years before holding him accountable.”
“You know this isn’t true and the only reason you are speaking out now is to hide from your own media circus,” he added in the post on X.
Notably still silent was GOP Sen. Jon Husted, Ohio’s other senator, who while leaving the Capitol Monday did not respond to reporters’ questions about whether Miller should resign.
Other Republicans in the Ohio House delegation are also staying quiet for now. Almost every House Republican from the state either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment on Moreno’s statement.
The exception was Rep. Jim Jordan, who brushed off questions in a Thursday CNN interview about Miller but noted he was “a good man” and was recently campaigning for him.
Asked Monday if Miller should still serve in Congress following Bernie Moreno’s statement, spokesperson for Jordan Stefanie Farrell said, “As Mr. Jordan has said, it’s up to the voters of Ohio’s 7th District.”
Back in the Senate, other Republicans who were unaware of the situation declined to weigh in on the incident.
“I am not aware of the situation, so I don’t have a comment right now,” said Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has been a leading GOP voice on domestic violence issues within the military.
But a steady drip of Republican senators said Monday evening they trusted Bernie Moreno.“It would surprise me if Bernie were being untruthful,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming said. “I guess I was surprised that it bubbled up to the public sphere, but I suspect that Bernie has got a beat on the situation.”
Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia said he was unaware of the details of the allegations but that “Bernie’s a pretty level-headed guy.”
“I don’t know enough about the allegations, but like Bernie said, it sounds like he thinks he needs psychological help,” Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said, adding, “I trust Bernie.”
Chris Marquette contributed to this report.
Senate Budget Committee Republicans will meet Tuesday morning to talk about advancing a fiscal blueprint for a new party-line spending bill.
Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) declined to say , in an interview Monday if he plans to introduce a resolution this week, noting that he was “working with leadership” and that the “first priority” is to pass a stopgap spending bill. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a panel member, said he didn’t expect the Senate to take up a budget resolution this week because “I don’t think my leadership wants to do it.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t ruled out taking up a budget resolution but has been frank about the challenges it faces among GOP senators.
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