Trump digs in on divisive agenda in speech to Congress

Our live coverage of President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress has moved. Follow today’s live updates on the reaction to the president’s address, read more about the speech here and see notable pictures from the night.

President Donald Trump gave his first address to a joint session of Congress since returning to power, covering topics from domestic policy to foreign affairs.

In the longest annual address in modern history, Trump focused on the economy — digging in on trade and tariffs and promising to provide “relief to working families” amid high inflation.

Immigration was also a key focus, with Trump stressing crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants and calling for stricter border security. He also touted his 2024 election victory and critiqued the Biden administration in a divisive speech that drew protests from Democratic lawmakers.

President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks to a joint session of Congress.

Modern America’s political chasm never looked so bleak.

President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday night adopted the customs of a familiar annual political observance. But they failed to bridge the chasm of misunderstanding and contempt cleaving the country down the middle.

It was one of the only normal moments on a night that exemplified broken national unity as the president embarks on a second term that millions believe will usher in a new American golden age and millions more fear will destroy the country they love.

On Trump’s left were his adoring, raucous followers, who leapt to their feet repeatedly, cheering “USA, USA, USA,” and “Trump, Trump, Trump,” on the benches of the Republican Party he has transformed beyond all recognition into a personal political movement.

His speech was indistinguishable from his campaign rallies, which pulsated with flaming rhetoric, falsehoods and demagoguery.

But the trinity of the president, Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson on the House dais spoke of unbridled GOP power, as Senate Majority leader John Thune and conservative Supreme Court justices looked on from below.

Read Collinson’s full analysis.

President Donald Trump’s speech Tuesday night was well-received by those who backed him against Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, but alienated Democratic voters who oppose his agenda, a CNN focus group in the Philadelphia suburbs found.

Speaking to CNN’s Boris Sanchez, a group of Bucks County voters weighed in on Trump’s address. Last year, he became the first Republican to win the political battleground in a presidential race since 1988 with his 291-vote victory out of about 400,000 cast.

Carolyn Debuque, a retired Air National Guard probation officer from Quakertown, said Trump’s speech was “very positive.” A Republican who voted for Trump, she said the new tariffs on imports from China, Canada and Mexico “should have been done a long time ago.”

Democrats, though, were sharply critical.

Read more reaction.

New recruits participate in the Army's future soldier prep course at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina, in September 2024.

President Donald Trump claimed on Tuesday that the US military is having “among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services,” and that the Army had its “single-best recruiting month in 15 years” in January.

He added that “just a few months ago” the US “couldn’t recruit anywhere.”

This needs context. According to the Defense Department, military recruitment was already up over 10% in fiscal year 2024 compared with the year prior, and the delayed entry program for the active-duty military was up 10% in fiscal year 2025.

The delayed entry program is a way for recruits to join the military but not ship out until a later date.

And looking specifically at the Army’s recruitment, former Army Secretary Christine Wormuth, who served until January 20, told Fox News that the uptick started before Trump was elected — and that the Army in fact started seeing increased numbers in February 2024.

President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump’s address to Congress did little to change opinions of his policies among those who tuned in, according to a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

In a survey conducted prior to the speech, 61% said they believed his policies would move the country in the right direction, with 38% saying they would take the country in the wrong direction. Afterward, the results shifted to 66% and 34% respectively.

The viewership of Trump’s speech also leaned Republican – continuing the pattern of highly partisan audiences seen during his first term as president. About 60% of viewers said they approved of Trump’s handling of the presidency overall – though his broader approval rating with the American public has plummeted, a CNN poll released Sunday found.

Disapproval of disruption: Eight in 10 of those who watched said they felt that Democratic Rep. Al Green’s interruption of Trump’s speech in protest was inappropriate, with 20% calling it an appropriate reaction.

Former President Joe Biden speaks at Joint Base Andrews, following President Donald Trump's inauguration ceremonies on January 20.

President Donald Trump mentioned his predecessor 12 times during his speech to Congress Tuesday evening, per CNN’s count.

Trump’s first mention of former President Joe Biden came approximately eight minutes into the speech, and was during a section of the president’s remarks about immigration.

Trump’s other mentions of Biden came throughout the speech and on a variety of topics, including environmental protections, inflation, the job market, the CHIPS Act, power plants, farmers, and US aid to Ukraine.

Punching bag: CNN reported last month that even though Biden has left the White House, he’s never far from Trump’s mind. The former president has been a recurring punchline – and punching bag – in nearly every appearance Trump has made since returning to power. With Republicans in full control of Washington, Trump is forever in search of a foil and Biden tops the list.

CNN’s Jeff Zeleny and Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

During his speech to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump repeated a false claim that he got China to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural goods during his first administration and that the Biden administration “didn’t enforce it.”

That’s misleading. China agreed to increase agricultural purchases by $12.5 billion in 2020 and $19.5 billion in 2021, as part of a trade pact signed with the US in January 2020. That did occur in 2020 but not in 2021, when US agricultural exports to China increased by $6.4 billion compared with 2020, according to US Department of Agriculture data.

Nevertheless, the pact never specified that China would have to continue to keep up such purchase levels beyond 2021.

2022 surpassed 2021 levels of $33 billion, according to USDA data. However, by 2023, US agricultural exports to China declined by $9 billion.

The Republican-heavy audience that turned in to hear President Donald Trump’s speech on Tuesday greeted it with tempered positivity, according to a CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

Roughly 70% of viewers said they had at least a somewhat positive reaction, with a smaller 44% offering a very positive response.

That’s lower than the 57% of viewers who rated Trump’s initial address to Congress very positively eight years ago, or the 51% who said the same of former President Joe Biden’s initial address in 2021. It also comes just below the 48% “very positive” rating Trump saw for his 2018 State of the Union.

Good marks from speech watchers are typical for presidential addresses to Congress, which tend to attract generally friendly audiences that disproportionately hail from presidents’ own parties.

By contrast, Trump’s approval rating is underwater with the American public as a whole, a CNN poll released Sunday found, with 48% of US adults approving of his performance as president and 52% disapproving. The general public also rates Trump more negatively than positively on whether he has the right priorities and whether his policies are taking the country in the right direction, that survey found.

How we got these results: The CNN poll was conducted by text message with 431 US adults who said they watched the presidential address on Tuesday, and are representative of the views of speech-watchers only. Respondents were recruited to participate before the speech, and were selected by a survey of members of the SSRS Opinion Panel, a nationally representative panel recruited using probability-based sampling techniques.

Democrats hold protest signs during President Donald Trump's speech.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said he thinks that the way some members of his party opted to push back against President Donald Trump’s speech was not the best way to deliver a message of opposition.

Other Democratic senators noted though that there were Democrats applauding at some points in the speech.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren said that she applauded several times even if the cameras didn’t catch her. “I applauded for people who are here, people who’ve had extraordinary life stories. And I’m very happy that they had an opportunity to be recognized,” she said.

Warren said separately, “Evidently applauding as the Democrats did when he talked about the aid that we’ve given to Ukraine hit a nerve.”

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar also said she clapped several times. “The majority of Democrats attended the address and listened to him. And that’s what we’re supposed to do when we are in the Congress, but I think the bigger story was that it was the most divisive speech I’ve ever heard,” Klobuchar said.

A Union flag flies above Clacton Pier in Clacton-on-Sea, England, in June 2024.

Americans applied for British citizenship in record numbers last year, with a historically high volume of applications submitted in the last quarter of 2024 – a period coinciding with US President Donald Trump’s re-election.

More than 6,100 US citizens applied for UK citizenship last year, the most since records began in 2004, when fewer than 3,000 Americans submitted an application, according to data from the UK’s Home Office.

Last year’s numbers also saw a marked uptick from 2023, a year with fewer than 5,000 applications by US citizens.

Applications by Americans soared in the last three months of 2024, when more than 1,700 people applied – the most in any quarter in the past two decades.

The surge is reminiscent of an upswing recorded in the first six months of 2020, when more than 5,800 Americans gave up their citizenship, nearly tripling the number from all of 2019.

That uptick came in the wake of Trump’s first presidency and changes in tax policy, analysts argued then, and were mostly Americans who had already been living in Britain for some time.

Read the full story.

GOP lawmakers were highly critical after some of their Democratic colleagues protested or pushed back on President Donald Trump’s speech to Congress by walking out of the chamber, not attending at all, or holding up signs during his remarks.

This comes as House Republican leaders suggested that censure – a rare rebuke – is on the table for Democratic Rep. Al Green after he was removed from the chamber during the speech.

GOP Rep. Andrew Garbarino said Democrats let “personal” vendettas about Trump get in the way of the speech and his policy plans. “There’s a lot of things he talked about that everybody could have cheered for,” he said.

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds said he was “disappointed” by how Democrats acted. “When you’re talking about veterans and you’re talking about firefighters and you’re talking about kids that are getting awards, that’s when you come together, Republicans and Democrats,” he said.

Rep. Tim Burchett accused the Democrats’ of engaging in political stunts to attract attention. “They’re going to go back and give each other high fives, ‘Oh, we really stuck it to them,’ and they just look like fools,” Burchett said.

Rep. Don Bacon acknowledged past moments when Republican lawmakers interrupted presidential addresses made by former President Joe Biden, but still criticized Democrats.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he’s certain there will be many members who will put forward a resolution to censure Democratic Rep. Al Green, who was removed from the chamber a few minutes into the address by President Donald Trump to a joint session Tuesday.

Green was removed from the House floor at the beginning of the address after he shouted at Trump that he has “no mandate” and refused to sit down.

Censure is typically a rare move by lawmakers and amounts to a significant rebuke of a member of Congress, though it does not carry an explicit penalty beyond a public admonition of a lawmaker and is not as severe as expulsion. The House can vote to censure a member. Republicans had warned prior to the speech that any Democrats who ignored standards of decorum could face a censure vote.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told CNN’s Manu Raju that a censure vote against Green will “obviously” be considered.

“You saw a lot of disgraceful displays by the Democrats, from Al Green yelling and knowing in clear violation of the House rules that he was trying to interrupt a speech that we were not going to let happen,” Scalise said.

CNN’s Sarah Ferris contributed to this post.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday delivered his first address to Congress since returning to power.

The 47th president recapped his first 43 days in office, highlighting his work on tariffs, government cuts and foreign affairs in what was officially the longest first address to a joint session of Congress or State of the Union speech.

Trump was interrupted several times by Democratic lawmakers, including Democratic Rep. Al Green of Texas, who was ultimately removed from the crowd.

See photos from throughout the night:

Trump points while addressing a joint session of Congress at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday. Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson clap behind him.

Democratic members of Congress hold up signs reading "Save Medicaid" and "Protect Veterans." Democratic women were asked to wear pink to signify “protest and power,” one Democratic source said.

Cancer survivor Devarjaye "DJ" Daniel, 13, is lifted up by his father, Theodis Daniel, after Trump made him an honorary member of the US Secret Service.

Republicans stand as Democrats sit as Trump speaks.

Democratic Rep. Al Green calls for Trump to be impeached shortly after the president began his speech. Green, a 77-year-old Texan who carries a cane and is known inside the US Capitol for his ardent anti-Trump bent, was removed from the House chamber.

The US Capitol is seen as a woman carries an upside-down American flag on March 4.

Trump shakes hands with with members of Congress as he arrives.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene wears a hat reading "Trump was right about everything."

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan, Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Supreme Court Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett and former Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy arrive for Trump's address.

Trump gestures next to first lady Melania Trump as they head to their motorcade.

Members of the press work in the Russell Rotunda in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill ahead of Trump's address.

President Donald Trump repeated tonight a regular false claim that the US has spent $350 billion, “like taking candy from a baby,” to support Ukraine’s defense while Europe has collectively provided just $100 billion in aid.

That is not close to correct.

The US did have a slim lead in one particular category, military aid allocated, providing about $68 billion compared with about $66 billion from Europe. But even that was nowhere close to the giant gulf described by Trump.

It’s possible to arrive at different totals using different counting methodologies, but there is no apparent basis for Trump’s “$350 billion” figure. The US government inspector general overseeing the Ukraine response says on its website that the US had appropriated nearly $183 billion for the Ukraine response through December 2024, including about $83 billion actually disbursed – and that includes funding spent in the US or sent to countries other than Ukraine.

In his address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump grossly exaggerated the rise in autism prevalence in the US, saying the latest diagnosis rate of 1 in 36 children is up from 1 in 10,000 children “not long ago.”

The autism diagnosis rate has increased steadily over the past few decades — there was 1 diagnosis for every 36 children by age 8 in 2020, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, up from 1 diagnosis for every 150 children in 2000.

But that is not even close to Trump’s claim of 1 in 10,000. Experts say significant improvement in identifying and diagnosing autism is a key driver behind the rise in reported rates.

Some of the earliest studies on autism diagnosis from the 1960s and 1970s estimate reported autism prevalence to be in the range of 2 to 4 cases for every 10,000 children.

Republicans stand as Democrats sit as President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress in the House chamber at the US Capitol on Tuesday.

President Donald Trump addressed a joint session to Congress and Americans on Tuesday, outlining his accomplishments in the first weeks of his second term and his vision for the rest of the four years going forward. It was officially the longest of such speeches on record.

“America is back,” Trump said at the top of his speech, to cheers from mostly the Republican side of the chamber.

Trump has so far reimagined the use of executive authority, shifted the role of the US in the world, and transformed the size and scope of the federal government.

Here are some of the key lines from the speech:

Democratic Michigan Rep. Elissa Slotkin said that President Donald Trump “stole” the line “peace through strength” from Ronald Reagan and that the former Republican president would be “rolling in his grave” after the “spectacle” in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends like the Canadians in the teeth. He sees American leadership as merely a series of real estate transactions. 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 continued.

Watch the moment:

Trump touted withdrawing a second time from the Paris climate agreement, claiming in his address to Congress that the landmark climate deal was costing the US “trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying.”

This claim is inaccurate.

Former President Joe Biden pledged to pay $11.4 billion per year toward international climate financing upon taking office. However, the US contribution to a global finance goal ended up being far lower because Congress appropriated less money than Biden’s goal. Biden’s State Department announced it had allocated $5.8 billion to international climate finance by 2022. US climate finance contributions have never reached trillions of dollars.

The US wasn’t the only laggard on its climate finance commitments; other nations have struggled to meet a collective $100 billion climate financing goal meant to help countries vulnerable to sea level rise and droughts. China, the UK and the EU have all contributed. That goal was tripled to $300 billion annually by 2035 at the most recent United Nations Climate Conference.

Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who is giving the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, called for voters to get more involved with politics, arguing that democracy is “worth saving.”

In her speech, she said Americans should not “tune out,” and urged Americans to hold elected officials accountable and get organized.

She told voters they should go to town halls and tell their elected representatives what they think.

“Pick just one issue you’re passionate about and engage. And doomscrolling doesn’t count. Join a group that cares about your issue and act,” Slotkin said.