Trump Addresses a Joint Session of Congress

Happy Wednesday! Apple just announced plans to release iOS 18.4 Beta 2, and with it, a new “Face with Bags Under Eyes” emoji. It’s a shame the update won’t hit smartphones in time to capture the spirit of your Morning Dispatchers after President Donald Trump’s whopping 100-minute speech to Congress last night.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• Canada and China—America’s largest and third-largest trade partners, respectively—imposed retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. on Tuesday in response to President Trump’s new levies, which included 25 percent tariffs on most imports from Canada and Mexico and a 20 percent duty on Chinese goods. Beijing responded with 15 percent tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports, while Ottawa announced a 25 percent reciprocal duty on $107 billion worth of American goods, which will go into full effect over the coming weeks. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, meanwhile, said her country would respond to the U.S. levies with countermeasures of its own on Sunday. Stocks continued to plummet on Tuesday amid fears of a full-blown trade war.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday signaled his country’s willingness to sign a minerals deal with the United States, describing last week’s contentious Oval Office meeting with President Donald Trump as “regrettable.” “I would like to reiterate Ukraine’s commitment to peace,” he wrote on X. “Our meeting in Washington, at the White House on Friday, did not go the way it was supposed to be.” Zelensky’s statement followed Trump’s Monday order to pause U.S. military aid to the embattled country—a move that, if not reversed, is expected to have dire consequences for Ukraine’s ability to fend off ongoing Russian advances.
• Pakistani authorities have detained the senior Islamic State commander responsible for the deadly suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, President Trump announced during his address to Congress Tuesday night. Mohammad Sharifullah, an Afghan national, is now being extradited to the U.S. to face trial for his role in plotting the attack. The bombing, which was carried out as thousands of people attempted to flee the country in the final days of the Taliban’s takeover, killed 13 American service members and an estimated 170 Afghan citizens.
• Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to help mediate talks between the U.S. and Iran to address Tehran’s nuclear program and support for terrorist groups, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday. President Trump has repeatedly expressed his desire to reach another nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, which has significantly grown its stockpile of highly enriched uranium in recent months. Moscow “is ready to do everything in its power to achieve” a diplomatic resolution to the issues between the two countries, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Bloomberg.
• The Trump administration moved late last month to dismantle two expert committees responsible for working with the government to produce economic statistics, multiple outlets reported on Tuesday. One of the groups—the Bureau of Economic Analysis—produced reports on U.S. gross domestic product, while the other—the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, or FESAC—helped federal agencies track inflation, growth, and employment. “Its work goes to the essential transparency of these statistical agencies,” a former FESAC committee member told the Wall Street Journal. “When you remove that transparency, then that diminishes trust.” 
• The Department of Justice plans to drop a Biden-era federal lawsuit barring a controversial Idaho abortion law from taking full effect, a court filing by the state’s largest hospital system indicated on Tuesday. The move would effectively end a federal appeals court’s hold on parts of the near-total ban, which imposes severe penalties, including jail time, on medical professionals who provide abortions, with very few carve-outs. 

Trump Promises the ‘Golden Age of America’

On February 28, 2017, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump walked into the House of Representatives to deliver his address to a joint session of Congress. It was his chance, after a campaign filled with inflammatory and divisive rhetoric, to offer a positive vision to the American people—and to the lawmakers whose cooperation he would need to implement his agenda.

In that speech, he delivered. He stayed on script as he mused about America’s 250^th birthday, voicing optimism that July 4, 2026 would “see a world that is more peaceful, more just, and more free.” Throughout the address, he called for conservative policies to create a future that included health care innovation, a thriving economy, and safe communities—stressing that the goals would take a communal effort.

“This is our vision. This is our mission. But we can only get there together. We are one people, with one destiny. We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we all are made by the same God,” he said. “When we fulfill this vision, when we celebrate our 250 years of glorious freedom, we will look back on tonight as when this new chapter of American Greatness began.”

Fast forward eight years, and Trump’s tone was very different. In some ways, his address to Congress last night was indistinguishable from a campaign stump speech. And instead of extending an olive branch to Democrats as he did in 2017, he used the 100-minute remarks—the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history—to litigate political grievances and tout the more controversial aspects of his agenda.

“This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and, once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud,” he said, describing former President Joe Biden as “the worst president in American history.”

And the chamber’s Democrats hit back, punctuating Trump’s remarks with frequent jeers. The most notable stunt came toward the beginning of the speech, when Rep. Al Green of Texas stood up and shook his cane at the president, saying Trump had “no mandate” to cut Medicaid. After an ensuing shouting match between Green and Republican members who leapt to Trump’s defense, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson directed the chamber’s sergeant at arms to remove the disruptive congressman. 

The heckles didn’t end there. Some Democrats broke into chants of “January 6” as the president spoke of law and order, while others opted for a more silent form of protest, holding up signs reading “False,” “Musk Steals,” and “Save Medicaid.”

But the taunts only seemed to energize Trump as he lauded what he described as “the most successful” first month in office. With Elon Musk watching from the gallery, Trump claimed the tech CEO’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had found “hundreds of billions of dollars of dollars of fraud.” He then proceeded to list off dozens of federal initiatives that Musk’s team had eliminated, some of which he mischaracterized or exaggerated. “Eight million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of,” Trump said in a dig at the foreign aid programs currently in DOGE’s crosshairs. 

The president also trumpeted his crackdown on illegal immigration, one of the issues that contributed to his win in November, taking the opportunity to level attacks at his predecessor. “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border,” he said. “But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”

Trump then turned to the things he planned to achieve in his second term, promising that “the golden age of America has only just begun.” After touting his Tuesday decision to impose new tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico, and China—America’s three largest trade partners—the president talked tough about the looming trade war, promising to impose additional reciprocal tariffs on April 2. “Whatever they tax us, we will tax them,” he told lawmakers. “If they do nonmonetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do nonmonetary barriers to keep them out of our market.”

The president also doubled down on his promise to acquire Greenland. Addressing the mineral-rich Danish territory’s inhabitants directly, Trump said he supported their right to determine their own future. But then he seemed to contradict himself, adopting a more foreboding tone: “I think we’re going to get it—one way or the other, we’re going to get it.”

Trump later addressed the war in Ukraine—the elephant in the chamber in the wake of his Oval Office shouting match with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week. After reading a letter from Zelensky in which the Ukrainian leader expressed his desire to end the war, the president reiterated his call for a ceasefire, claiming that Russia had signaled to U.S. officials that it’s “ready for peace.” “It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end the senseless war,” he added. “If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.”

Delivering the Democratic response to Trump’s address, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan excoriated the president for America’s about-face on Ukraine, saying that he “would have lost us the Cold War.” Turning Trump’s adoption of President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” moniker against him, she added: “After the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave.” 

During the 10-minute speech, Slotkin also warned of the inevitable economic pain of tariffs, Trump’s promise to seek retribution against perceived political enemies, and Musk’s attempts to take a wrecking ball to the federal government. “Don’t tune out. It’s easy to be exhausted,” she said, addressing viewers at home. “America needs you more than ever.”

Thus is the state of the country as America approaches its 250^th birthday next year. And as fate would have it, Trump will now preside over the semiquincentennial he waxed poet about in his first address to Congress. On that milestone, Americans will have a chance to reflect on where Trump’s presidency stands in the canon of U.S. history. Trump, for his part, seems to have a pretty high opinion of his time in office so far.

“It has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency—it’s our presidency—is the most successful in the history of our nation. By many,” he said last night. “And what makes it even more impressive is that do you know who No. 2 is? George Washington.”

Today’s Must-Read

Toeing the Company Line

Worth Your Time

• Happy Ash Wednesday! In an excerpt from her book Hunger for Righteousness, Phoebe Farag Mikhail reflected on the spirit of solidarity behind the Christian practice of fasting during Lent. “Historically, those who could afford to eat meat and dairy on a regular basis were supposed to give the cost of that food as alms. Those who fasted further by abstaining from food till a specific hour were to give the cost of the skipped meal or two to the poor as well. This connection is deliberate. It serves as a chance to take stock of all the excess that we have acquired and return some of it to those who do not have excess,” she wrote. “In choosing to abstain from certain foods for over a month and a half and giving what we would have fed ourselves to others, our almsgiving is less a charity than it is empathy and solidarity. In the words the Lord said to Isaiah, when we fast and give to the hungry and the poor, we are giving to our ‘own flesh.’ When we experience what it is like to not eat or drink even when we are hungry or thirsty, we get a small taste of what it is like to live with water shortages, chronic hunger, food insecurity, and war.”
• In a powerful letter to Donald Trump, former Polish President Lech Wałęsa and more than 30 former political prisoners expressed their “horror and disgust” at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s treatment at the White House last week. Comparing the American president’s scolding to interrogation tactics deployed by Cold War-era officials, the anti-Communist activists argued that Ukraine is deserving of our gratitude, not scorn. “Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the frontline for more than 11 years in the name of these values and [the] independence of their Homeland, which was attacked by Putin’s Russia. We do not understand how the leader of a country that is the symbol of the free world cannot see [that],” they wrote, according to a Facebook translation. “Mr. President, material aid—military and financial—cannot be equivalent to the blood shed in the name of independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, as well as the whole free world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured with money.”

Presented Without Comment

Financial Times: Americans Apply for U.K. Citizenship in Record Numbers

Also Presented Without Comment

Politico: No More In-Person Town Halls, NRCC Chief Tells House Republicans

The chair of the House GOP’s campaign arm told Republican lawmakers Tuesday to stop holding in-person town halls amid a wave of angry backlash over the cuts undertaken by President Donald Trump’s administration.

…

Trump on Monday dismissed the town hall uproar — much of it trained on the sweeping cutbacks made by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency — as being the work of “paid ‘troublemakers.’” Many other GOP leaders have adopted a similar tack, asserting that the protests Republican lawmakers have encountered have been concocted by Democrats and do not reflect genuine voter anger over the Trump cuts.

In the Zeitgeist 

Dolly Parton’s husband of nearly 60 years, Carl Dean, died on Monday at the age of 82. The iconic country music singer-songwriter has described Dean, whom she met at a laundromat on her first day in Nashville in 1964, as the inspiration behind many of her timeless classics, including Jolene.

Let Us Know

What were your main takeaways from President Donald Trump’s address to Congress?