CNN
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President Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night will act as an extension – and explanation – of the rapid change he’s unleashed in just 44 days of his new term.
He will face his biggest audience yet as he pushes for congressional Republicans, who have narrow majorities, to turn his agenda into law – the outcome of which will go a long way toward shaping the success of his presidency.
Republicans have largely rallied around the president, but there have been early cracks in party unity over some of the administration’s actions to cut government services and Trump’s recent rhetoric toward Ukraine. Late Monday, Trump paused military aid to Ukraine, which is already raising concern in some corners of the GOP even as many Republicans have praised Trump for last week’s Oval Office showdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump’s speech is also coming on the same day as 25% tariffs against Mexico and Canada went into effect, causing a volatile morning on the markets amid fears of a global trade war and raising alarm among some red-state senators about the impact on their states.
Trump is mindful of the skepticism and criticism he is facing from many Republican lawmakers over the emerging trade war, with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other top advisers fielding calls “all day long,” one senior administration official told CNN.
The president is unfazed by the criticism, aides say. But to deflect from the furious critiques over tariffs, Trump plans to shine a light in his speech on a series of executive orders he has signed on cultural issues that are widely popular with the Trump base.
“Watch,” the senior administration official told CNN, “our Republicans will be clapping all night long.”
The White House announced Monday evening that “The Renewal of the American Dream” is the theme of the speech.
“Tomorrow night will be big,” Trump wrote Monday on social media. “I will tell it like it is.”
Here is what to watch during Trump’s first address to Congress of his new administration:
After becoming the first Republican in two decades to win the popular vote, Trump now faces pressure to deliver on campaign promises, like lowering prices.
His party has full control of Congress, but given how fast political winds can shift in Washington, Trump’s advisers have made speed their priority in pushing his agenda – targeting the two-year window before the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump himself has taken a lesson from his first term – he’s not waiting for the perfect moment to execute on his promises. Instead, he signs executive orders almost every day, sometimes deciding only in the minutes beforehand which to sign.
One Trump adviser said a goal of the president’s speech would be connecting his flurry of early moves to the lives of average Americans. Trump will likely address his plan to lower prices, although the specific contours of his speech were still coming together Monday.
Since taking office a second time, Trump has overseen a dramatic reshaping of the federal government, much of it at the hand of the Department of Government Efficiency and Elon Musk.
The world’s richest man, who has emerged as one of the most visible and influential advisers to Trump, will be in the House chamber for the speech, a White House official told CNN, and will be held up as a leading example of the administration’s swift action to change Washington.
Entire agencies – which in a previous age would be sending their priorities to the White House for inclusion in the speech – have been gutted in the new Trump era. Tens of thousands of federal workers have lost their jobs.
Not all Republicans are fully on board. Some lawmakers been bombarded with constituent phone calls and voters at town halls who are angry at the dramatic cuts to the federal government.
The president’s address comes amid disagreement among House and Senate Republicans over how to enact a budget that aims to reduce spending, protect Social Security and make permanent the signature tax cuts from Trump’s first term.
He is poised to rally Republicans behind his agenda, advisers said, without offering specific guidance for how to achieve it.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who will sit behind Trump’s left shoulder, has proven more than willing to accommodate the president’s whims.
“There is no daylight between the House Republicans and Senate Republicans,” Johnson told CNN. “We all have exactly the same idea and mission and that is to deliver the America First agenda.”
Trump’s speech will be heavily focused on his domestic agenda, an official told CNN, with Trump previewing his core policy proposals for the next four years.
Still, one of the main areas of interest is how the president uses the global stage to address the wars abroad, specifically between Russia and Ukraine – and how hard a line he takes against Ukraine after pausing aid.
Trump has discarded decades of American foreign policy orthodoxy, forging ahead in pursuit of new deals with countries like Russia – while other allies like Ukraine are left as collateral damage. Foreign ambassadors who customarily attend the address have been scrambling to explain the changes to their capitals.
It was only a year ago that Biden administration officials tried to get Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukraine’s president, to Washington as a guest at the 2024 State of the Union speech (she couldn’t make it, citing scheduling conflicts). Trump’s address comes four days after Trump castigated her husband in the Oval Office.
Trump said a day ahead of the speech that he would address the Ukraine situation.
“Well, I’ll let you know. We’re making a speech, you probably heard about it, tomorrow night, so I’ll let you know tomorrow night,” he said Monday when asked if he thought the mineral deal with Ukraine was dead.
Back in 2020, Trump’s rivals felt emboldened. After his address that year, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi could be seen on camera ripping up a copy of his speech.
An open question this year is how Democrats respond in the room. Party leaders are still scrambling to settle on a message and a plan for how to present a counterbalance to Trump, mindful of the drubbing that Democrats took in the November elections.
The party has tapped freshman Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to deliver the formal rebuttal, an often thankless task that can still elevate a junior politician’s profile. A former CIA analyst and member of the US House, Slotkin won Michigan last year at the same time that Trump carried the state.
Ever the television showman, Trump has long relied on an element of surprise for his primetime addresses to Congress.
While the president’s speechwriting team has been working on multiple drafts, aides said Monday that Trump has spent little time on the address – aside from a few theatrical moments that are intended to resonate with the audience on television and inside the House chamber.
Unlike during Trump’s first term, top adviser Stephen Miller hasn’t taken the lead in crafting this speech, leaving the task to other speechwriters. However, he and Trump’s other senior aides will all be involved in edits heading into Tuesday evening.
Trump is expected to take a victory lap, touting his election win – something he argues delivered him a mandate to enact sweeping change, despite its relatively small margin – as well as lauding what one senior White House official referred to as the “successes and accomplishments” from his first six weeks in office.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
