And good evening and welcome to C-SPAN's coverage of the Joint Address to Congress.
That's an evening view of the Capitol here in Washington, the site of President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress in about an hour.
This is his fifth overall and the first of his second term, about 43 days in.
His address comes as lawmakers are working to cut government spending, come up with a federal budget, and deliver on President Trump's goals of $2 trillion in savings.
And it comes after uncertainty on U.S.-Ukraine policy and the beginning of a potential tariff war.
And here's a live look at the White House, where the Trumps will be departing shortly for the 16-block drive to the Capitol down Pennsylvania Avenue.
White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt gave a preview of his speech earlier today, calling it a renewal of the American dream.
We'll talk more about the message of tonight's address and the guests the president is bringing with him with the two journalists who will be with us in studio tonight.
Now back on Capitol Hill, arrivals for tonight's address already underway.
As the more than 500 elected lawmakers and their guests make their way to the House chamber, we'll soon see senators gather to make their way over to the House and the arrival of cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices, and many other dignitaries.
And right outside the House chamber is Statuary Hall, where dozens of journalists are positioned to cover the evening.
C-SPAN, of course, has live coverage throughout the evening on all of our networks and platforms.
Well, joining us from Capitol Hill is Dave Clark with Punch Bowl News.
Mr. Clark, all day long today, there were a lot of press conferences with some pre-speech positioning by both parties, yes?
unidentified
There certainly were.
I mean, obviously, the White House previews its message that the president's going to deliver tonight, and Democrats are giving a little bit of a taste of how they're going to counter-program the event.
Anyway, I think what we're going to hear from the president tonight is kind of twofold.
One is he's going to try to explain what he's done during these first six weeks of his administration, which have been a bit of a whirlwind.
He's going to be trying to kind of put together all these executive orders that he's put out and tell a story about those.
And then he's going to kind of look forward and say what else he wants to do.
He's going to probably make a push for more border security funding from Congress.
He's going to talk about likely his trade wars or the tariffs he's ratching up on some of our allies and adversaries.
And I think when it comes to summing up what he's done so far, he's going to try to kind of make sense of all these executive orders he's done.
He's going to talk about his effort to shrink the government through Doge and Elon Musk.
And I think he's also going to touch a lot on some of the culture war issues, whether that's orders that he's put out on transgender people or ending DEI programs in the government.
Meanwhile, you know, Democrats are going to talk about some of the same themes, but obviously with a different tact.
They're going to be highlighting all the services that Americans might not be getting if the government's dismantled the way the president's trying to do that.
They're going to be also focusing on some of the possible budget cuts to programs like Medicaid that Republicans are considering.
So there'll definitely be a lot of talk tonight, a lot of jousting over what the agenda ahead should be.
I was talking to a source familiar with the speech preparations, and they said it's not going to be flowery language.
They said that it's going to be impassioned.
It's something that he has been deeply involved in, that he's kind of been editing up until the last moment, and that it's going to reflect, I think, the shift that you've seen in the White House, certainly since at least last year.
I mean, since last week after that Zelensky meeting, really feud yelling match in the Oval Office of him doubling down and his administration doubling down on this idea that they are projecting American strength.
So I'm looking to see if the tone reflects what we've seen from them over the last four days, which is kind of a doubling down of this projection that they're making.
Hey, Peter, as you were talking about, lawmakers and the president get to invite guests in the House chamber for this address to Congress.
Topping the list is a name that many people have heard repeatedly over the first 40 days of this administration, and that's Elon Musk.
Billy House, who reports for Bloomberg News, putting on X today that Speaker Mike Johnson wanted Musk to be on the House floor tonight and made inquiries about his access as a non-official government officer or employee.
But the speaker telling Billy Johnson that Musk will be seated, in fact, in the gallery above the floor with the First Lady.
Now, in the box with the First Lady will be around 11 guests, and you'll hear the president introduce each of them in his speech tonight.
Here's an idea of the people and the themes that they reflect and why they were invited to sit with the First Lady tonight.
As we said, Elon Musk, the president expected to highlight the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, Doge.
Allison and Lauren Phillips, this is the mother and sister of Lake and Riley.
Lake and Riley, the 22-year-old Augusta University nursing student who was murdered by undocumented immigrants.
Alexis Nunningre, also a mother of a 12-year-old killed by undocumented immigrants.
So that will be a theme tonight with those guests and others.
And then Peyton McNabb, a volleyball player who allegedly had a concussion while playing against a transgender competitor.
And then January Littlejohn, who is an anti-transgender parents' rights activist.
Those are some of the names and the folks that will be in the box tonight with the First Lady.
As for Democrats tonight, this is ABC's headline.
Some Democrats are planning to skip the joint address to Congress.
The list seems to be growing as the day goes on.
Representative Alexander Ocasio-Cortez, Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Patty Murphy, Senator Martin Heinrich, and others all planning to skip tonight's joint address.
And then there was this reporting from Axios earlier today that Democrats are also split on how to respond.
Those Democrats that are going to be in the chamber.
Some members may walk out of the chamber when they hear something that they don't agree with.
You may see props like signs or noisemakers that Democrats have in the chamber with them tonight.
Some have talked about a pocket constitution that they may waive.
You'll also see members wearing ties and scarves with the colors of Ukraine's flag.
Women, female members of the Congressional Black Caucus have talked about wearing black to mark a somber mood.
And then the Democratic Women's Caucus, they're planning to wear pink in defiance.
Now, what does that look like?
Take a look at this from X earlier today.
This is Representative Norma Torres putting out a picture of her and other members of the Women's Democratic Caucus wearing pink, and that is what they will be wearing in the chamber.
And it says, she said, it's because we're powerful, passionate, and PO'd.
Pink isn't just a color.
It's a symbol of protests, a symbol of women's power and persistence.
The truth is, women can't afford Trump.
And then there's also this reporting from The Hill.
The House Freedom Caucus has sent a warning statement ahead of Trump's speech threatening to formally censure any Democrats who disrupt the joint address tonight.
Jerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, responded to that from the Freedom Caucus, that warning with just this picture.
This is Marjorie Taylor Greene yelling at President Biden during his State of the Union address last year.
I think that there has been a market change since Trump's first term that has carried over into the Biden years.
And as Greta was talking about, you know, like we could expect at least something that will be kind of dramatic.
And so I feel like there have always been moments where we can point to, I mean, there was a joint address that President Barack Obama delivered where he was talking about health care and Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, yelled out, you lie.
I mean, that was obviously a moment that sort of lives in the history, but that was kind of the exception to a lot of the rules that we've seen.
I mean, it's been amped up a little bit in the last 10 years.
But I would argue that some of the best moments of these joint addresses, which sometimes people feel can run far too long, obviously they start on the East Coast a little bit late.
And sometimes people believe that they are maybe a little bit too monotone.
So some of the more lively moments happen through these interruptions, through a president like Joe Biden last year, kind of going back and forth with the Republicans when he was talking about several various things.
I think that those moments really liven up something that at times can be a bit stale or a bit dry or feel like, you know, once it's getting into the 90 minutes or the 100 minutes, that it's just gone on too long.
And I think what was interesting about that moment was, you know, there were some discussions about his age already in the zeitgeist.
We already had Dean Phillips basically come in, run, and say that somebody needs to have this conversation, that Joe Biden should no longer be president.
And so there was some questions about whether or not he could do it in an election year, that type of speech, that type of format.
Obviously, you know, Joe Biden is not necessarily known to be the best orator out of all the presidents.
And so there were some questions about whether or not he could do that.
And he actually got rave reviews from that one because of the way that he was able to take the incoming from Republicans, because of the way that he was able to kind of go back and have this levity of banter, you know, basically saying, like, I'm telling you the truth, guys, I'm telling you the truth.
And kind of those market Joe Biden is so I'm curious to see how Trump does today.
He is not one to shy away from banter, quite frankly.
I think he likes kind of the back and forth, not necessarily confrontation, but certainly the give and take of, you know, arguing with somebody who maybe doesn't see his viewpoints or slapping somebody down.
So I'm curious to see how devoted Trump is to the text that he wants to say versus being in the moment in those intimate settings.
If you, I went back and watched his 2017 joint adjuster Congress.
Obviously, that was his first time in office.
And what somebody told me at the time who was a part of the White House was that they were really intent on it being Trump's reintroduction to America.
They knew him as the apprentice, Donald Trump.
They knew him as the campaigner Donald Trump, but they didn't know him as president.
And so when you go back and listen to that speech, his tone is really different than I think what you will hear tonight.
It was softer.
It was more unifier.
It was trying to show the American people that he can be presidential.
And it was also trying to tell both Republicans and Democrats, let's put away the trivial fights and let's work together on his agenda.
Now, I think if you go back and look at his first term, really only legislatively what he got done was tax cuts.
He wants that to be much different this time.
And I think you also see a Donald Trump who's really not going to take a lot of crap from people.
He is the president of a country where his party has the House, the Senate.
You could argue that he has a more favorable Supreme Court for some of the things that he wants to get done.
And so he's really going to come in there, I believe, and kind of put the marker down and say, this is my party.
This is my country.
Give me what I want.
And if you do not get on board, you will get left.
And I think it's important to note, too, that this Congress, the majority of them have been elected since Trump was elected.
So this is what they know.
This is the world.
This is the tone.
This is the way that they see you do things.
So some of the folks who perhaps wanted a more sedate, boring approach to the State of the Union or things like that, they're gone.
They're retired or they lost elections.
And so this is, in a way, he's shaped not just the Republican Party, but also the Democratic Party because Democrats have been in the opposition, the minority and the majority.
But it's always in relation to Trump.
I mean, Trump, even when he was out of office, he still dominated the conversation, even through Joe Biden's four years.
And you saw the tone shift just in his first four addresses.
I mean, you did see this conciliatory, I'm going to run the country.
I'm going to run all the country.
I'm going to reach out to Democrats.
We're going to get a lot of stuff done.
We're going to cut taxes.
And at the end of his last State of the Union, you had Nancy Pelosi ripping up her copy of the speech behind him, and he didn't shake her hand.
So that, you know, I think that we're going to see more like that last speech than we are the first speech, even though there are no Democrats who are going to be behind him.
The pomp and circumstance is kind of minusially different, but I think you'll see it kind of amped up when he gets to the State of the Union next year.
But certainly the effect is the same.
It is a president, his first month or so, first five weeks in office, laying out what they have already done and what they want to do.
And we know that Trump has come into office after four years of basically kind of being in DC exile in West Palm.
Obviously, the people that make up his cabinet, the people that make up his White House, some of his most trusted advisors, spent four years in some of these right-aligned think tanks figuring out what Trump's platform should be should he once he gets back into office.
And so they're kind of moving on that.
But I think what you saw for the first five weeks in his administration was executive power, him issuing over 75 executive orders, him basically pushing, I think, what a lot of people believe are the limits to those executive orders.
And now I think you're going to see Trump really try to turn onto that legislative power, making it very clear what he wants Congress to do when in office.
And so that is what we expect from a joint address of Congress, joint address to Congress from a president, really laying out how they want that first year to go, but then all the years after that.
Jason Dick, that speech that Biden, that President Biden gave last year, that let's use that as our lodestar, that did make a difference last year's speech.
As you noted, with Biden, I mean, and I think that I would argue that in 2017, Trump set the table for what he would eventually get, you know, with the tax cuts, you know, with that first year.
So, I mean, depending on what he wants to emphasize, I mean, it's obvious that, you know, just by the guess that they do want to emphasize issues that are important to their base, that can be something that will signal to their base, like, hey, we've got you, we're keeping our word.
If you see like some of the focus groups that have come out, even people who are independents and Democrats are saying, well, he did say he was going to do this, and, you know, whether it's tariffs or what have you.
And I think that that's the thing that, you know, reaffirming that in the eyes of the White House could be a good because they really actually don't have that much time for legislation.
These times when the party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress are pretty fleeting.
They have a few months to do it, and then they're in the midterms, and then usually they lose one of the chambers.
So they know that they're on the clock and they want to hit the ground running.
And this is the first chance to speak directly to the American people after the election.
Peter, Jason Dick mentioned these former speaker ripping up the speech of President Trump during his first term and in his last address to Congress at his State of the Union.
Manuraju of CNN, catching up with the former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, recalled, she recalled tearing up President Donald Trump's speech in 2020 after his State of the Union address.
And she told him, quote, hopefully he won't lie so much this time.
It was a manifesto of lies, as I said at the time.
There's a quote from the former speaker ahead of tonight's speech by President Trump, his first of his second term.
You were talking about do these speeches make a difference?
Will they impact poll numbers?
So let's take a look at where the polls stand right now for the president.
His favorability numbers and these being tracked by YouGov and The Economist since the beginning of this second administration, you can see at the end of January, he was above water plus two in the first week of February, his even.
And then his favorability, unfavorability numbers shown there, you can see the favorables start to drop mid-February.
And the last week of February, his unfavorable number at 47% to 50% for his favorable.
And then take a look at 538 and their average of the President Trump's approval rating.
48% approve, 47% disapprove.
His unfavorables, according to the average by 538, at 48.2%, and his favorables at 46.5%.
Now, when you break this down by agenda items, the White House is keen to point you to a Harvard Harris poll that was done recently.
And this is what they found.
Support among voters for deporting immigrants with a criminal history, 81%, according to this poll, supporting that.
76% at the time that this Harris poll was, Harvard Harris poll was taken.
76 said that they would approve the Doge cost-cutting efforts.
76% closing the U.S.-Mexico border.
69% saying that they support banning trans athletes from girls' sports.
And only about 39% in support of renaming the Gulf of America, the Gulf of Mexico, to the Gulf of America.
And then Reuters had a recent poll that we want to share with you ahead of tonight's address by the president Reuters Ipsos poll.
When they asked about the wrong track, they said 44% said that we are going on the wrong track for employment and jobs.
53% said for the national economy on the wrong track.
Mark Wayne Mullen, a real ally to President Trump, who was responsible, and at least some part for getting a lot of cabinet members through, kind of pulling them, counseling them, walking with them through the offices.
I actually don't spend that much time on the Hill.
I'm usually at the White House.
But when I do stories, I kind of go there day to day.
You know, it's a quick way to get quotes.
I think what's really interesting to your point is how much of the makeup of both the Senate and the House has changed over the last eight years and how much it is Donald Trump's party.
I mean, you can kind of look at that group.
Obviously, Elizabeth Warren is not included in this comment or this section about how many people who are real advocates of President Trump's in a way that the Senate just certainly wasn't Trump's first term.
In a lot of ways, it was not just Democrats who were objecting to what Trump wanted to do in office, but it was his own party.
They kind of found him a little bit unserious.
They didn't seem to like him very much.
And so that is completely different.
These are people who really like Trump, who like what he's doing, and who ultimately know that the American public that voted for Trump is with Trump and not necessarily with them.
I mean, it does bring to mind the kind of the cliché about Democrats and Republicans, that Democrats have to fall in love and Republicans have to fall in line.
And Republicans have definitely fallen in line.
And, you know, you mentioned Jasmine Mark Wayne Mullen.
He really is, it's almost like he's playing to type.
You know, this is the guy who's a martial artist and kind of likes to be known as sort of a tough guy.
And he has been kind of one of the big enforcers for the Trump administration in a way where he's actually still working with his colleagues.
You actually don't hear a lot of negative things about Mark Quayne Mullen.
He's in John Thune's kitchen cabinet.
He doesn't have a formal leadership position, but he is somebody who has a lot of respect in a very short period of time in the Senate.
And yes, this is definitely, I see, we're looking at the Senate floor right now.
And Joni Ernst, she questioned whether Pete Hegset was the right person to run the Defense Department and just got sort of overwhelmed by reaction to Trump's allies, both inside that building and outside it, and quickly got in line.
We don't have a booth because we are a new organization with notice, but we are a part of WACA and we do do WACA, the White House Correspondents Association.
Thank you.
And, you know, I spend a lot of time at the White House.
I was just out there at the South Lawn on Friday when Trump left for Mar-a-Lago, his West Palm Beach hotel location club right after that blow up with Zelensky.
And so, I mean, it's quite a privilege to be able to walk the White House grounds and be able to report, particularly at a time like this where, you know, you just don't know what's happening.
It's only been a couple of weeks, but almost every weekend.
And there's only been one time that I've been out there that he didn't stop to talk.
He is chatty.
He likes to talk.
He likes to give his point of view.
And I find it actually to be so helpful that he is talking so often because I think one difference between the Biden administration and this administration is that you had to talk to a lot of people around Biden to get Biden's point of view.
And the pool has not, the press pool has not been given a transcript yet.
Back into the Senate, there's Tim Scott in the center with Shelly Moore Capito.
They're lining up.
The senators are lining up.
It will take them all of two and a half minutes to get from that location over to Stat Hall, Statuary Hall, which is just outside.
And we will see them then come right through here.
We're going to see the President's cabinet as well, the Supreme Court, the Joint Chiefs, and we expect the lights to go on in the House very shortly.
We can see the members in there, and we will go live to that.
Jason Dick, how would you, I'm not sure how to ask this question, how would you describe the relationship between Mike Johnson and President Trump and Mike Johnson and the 218 Republican members of Congress?
I mean, I do think that, I mean, on just a very simple level, Mike Johnson is there to help implement the president's agenda, and he's made no bones about that.
How he gets that does account for some of the interesting relationships he has with his members.
And he's had to navigate a very small majority.
He has two members who has two vacancies, two Florida members, Matt Gates and Michael Waltz, and won't get those replaced until April at a minimum.
And so he has his lieutenants like a lot of speakers do.
But the thing is that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party for that matter are more homogenous in their beliefs than really they've been in almost any part.
They very much vote together, even if there are some defectors here.
And I would argue that it actually gets easier when you have a margin like Johnson has right now, where when Pete Hegseth was confirmed, he lost three Republicans.
Nobody wanted to be the fourth Republican, who would sink the nomination.
So there's a lot of pressure when the margins are very close.
Yeah, so I do think that it is a, it becomes, you know, there are some very stark choices.
Like, you know, you mentioned when you were talking with Mr. Clark earlier that the, you know, they have a funding deadline in a few days, in a little over a week.
And if the Democrats don't play ball in the House, then that puts a lot of pressure on all the Republicans.
Do they want to be the person who is going to be saddled with the blame for a government shutdown?
The dynamics are a little different in the Senate because they do have the filibuster on appropriations bills on this March 14th.
The budget resolution process, where the tax cuts will be, is a different process, and we're going to get to that in a few months.
It seems like eons that we have.
But I do think that you never want to be the one person who gets singled out as the person who sunk the president's agenda in these tight things.
And the minority can just say, we're not in the majority.
I saw that she posted a photo earlier today with black and white as she's preparing for her speech.
But I think that should this go well, she's in a good position to be at least one of the people who are leading the Democratic Party at a time where the Democratic Party is lacking a real singular leader.
I think that one of the reasons, or a couple of reasons, why they chose Senator Slotkin, is because she won a state in which Kamala Harris didn't during the same timeframe by several points.
It is because she is from the Midwest and people believe that she appeals to American voters in a way that they think that the Democratic message was lacking this election.
She is somebody who comes from a national security background, so she can talk about that from a firsthand point of view.
And people believe that she's more down to earth.
I think the other really interesting thing about Senator Slotkin is that she was actually among some of the Democrats to pretty early question the vitality of Joe Biden, question whether or not that should be the party leader, whether or not he should be on the ticket in a way that other folks didn't.
And so I think that she has a big platform today.
And, you know, it will be, you know, time will only tell whether or not she delivers or whether or not people like her message.
But certainly, you know, this is an area for Democrats in which they don't have a real leader.
I just also wanted to piggyback a little bit on what Jasmine was saying about Senator Slotkin.
She was first elected in 2018 as part of this kind of national security Democratic moms group with people like Abigail Spamberger, who left Congress and is now running for the Obama administration.
Right, Slotkin, and also a former CIA analyst, Spamberger, another former CIA officer.
Well, it looks there like Angus King, the gentleman with the mustache, right behind, Right behind him is Rand Paul walking in with the senator from Washington State and Maggie Hassan from New Hampshire.
So it does look like they are doing the D in the R thing like they have done in the past here.
So it is, you know, I would love to see some of these ducks.
Yeah, these dynamics as you get down to the, you know, as you get down to the last bit, you know, it's almost like being picked last for a basketball game.
You know, some people are naturally very, you know, compatible.
And then, you know, sometimes you get stuck with somebody who you can't imagine ever having to want to take a photo with.
I mean, some of the other people who come to mind who have get there very early.
L.A. Engel, former member, former Democrat from New York, Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia.
And you'd hear about also just like small little bits of bonding, sometimes for people who wouldn't necessarily spend a lot of time together, particularly Democrats and Republicans from different parts of the country and so forth.
And it is, you know, it's one of those quirky kind of rituals that makes covering Congress a lot of fun to know about these sort of things.
We've got some old photos in the roll call archive of people bringing newspapers and just reading them all day long, waiting for the president and people to start filling in.
She was seen as someone who had a great future ahead of her.
I would argue that she is still really in the mix.
She is one of the White House's most you senators, most talked to senators on the Hill.
So, you know, I mean, you know, I think that they, these, if these rebuttals go poorly, obviously it's some bad PR, but it doesn't completely derail your entire career.
But certainly, I think after hers, there were a lot of questions about whether or not she would be a good person.
Yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion that we are going to see a lot of Elon Musk throughout this speech as he sits next to Melania and next to the second lady up in the gallery.
He often goes out to Pebble Beach along the cameras next to the White House that are typically out of the screen when they're doing things on the North Portico to go do TV hits with various different networks and comes and talks to the press.
He is very press friendly and very open to talking about the latest numbers that they've been able to accumulate through deportations, the fact that they would like more money from Congress to continue to do those wide-scale deportations, something that we know that Trump is going to ask Congress for again today, really trying to not just get money for deportations, but get money for a larger border security package.
It looks like a Ukraine-colored flag, our scarf in her hand, and Stenny Hoyer with a Ukraine-designed or Ukraine colors tie, the former leaders of the House Democrats.
John Bozeman is right there in the center of your screen.
He's a Republican from Arkansas, working his way down.
There's Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, former governor of Virginia.
Right behind him, Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.
The Senate still has not gotten seated.
We've been watching them come down the aisle for quite a while.
Hakeem Jeffries and Debbie Dingell.
Debbie Dingell's husband, John Dingell, the late John Dingell, was a dean of the house from Dearborn, Michigan for years and years and years.
And now she's been in Congress for years.
And of course, Hakeem Jeffries is the leader of the Democratic Party.
Jasmine Wright, do you see a lot of members coming through at the White House?
Sometimes they, particularly in the first few weeks, they would come into the press briefing after an unannounced meeting with the president because they said, you know, I hadn't been here in four years.
I wasn't invited the entire time that Joe Biden was in office.
And so they were really excited to be in there, to be back into the Oval Office, really, frankly, to be back into power.
I think, you know, the president has been really adamant about having these members of Congress come over to the White House.
It's one of the biggest tools that the president can use.
Kind of not just the power of the pulpit there, but really, you know, bringing lawmakers on Air Force One, bringing them into the Oval, allowing them into the grandness of the White House so that in turn they can give you kind of this legislative freedom to do what you will and to make your agenda become a reality.
And so I think that that is what Donald Trump is using.
But we know tomorrow, the House Freedom Caucus, Chip Roy, we saw him a few moments ago, they will be going to the White House as Trump tries to pull them along.
Lindsey Graham, who we see on the screen right now, he was at the White House on Friday.
He came out to the sticks to talk to reporters after the Zelensky blow-up and kind of started, at least publicly, rolling the tires on whether or not there should be a regime change in Ukraine.
Obviously, that language has kind of softened in the last really like three hours.
I believe that's Lisa Murkowski coming up on the screen.
Peter, you've pointed out a couple members of the president's cabinet tonight.
One you will not see is the Veterans Affairs Secretary, Doug Collins.
He is the designated survivor tonight, per the White House official by CNN's Caitlin Collins reporting that the designated survivor skips out on these joint addresses, the state of the unions, in case of a catastrophic event.
And so tonight it is the VA Secretary, Doug Collins, who will not be in the chamber.
And then you were talking about those folks that line up on the center aisle, Billy House of Bloomberg, noting that the great center aisle seat claimers of the past, Elliot Ingle, the late Sheila Jackson Lee, Michelle Bachman, they're not there tonight, but a new group has appeared to be already getting in place.
This was hours ago at 4 p.m. Eastern Time.
They were getting in place along the center aisle, and that included Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, other Republicans, Andy Ogles of Kentucky, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Congresswoman Miller Meeks of Iowa, all lining up on the Republican side on the center aisle hours before the speech in hopes that they get to shake the president's hand when he comes down the aisle.
The President of the Senate, at the direction of that body, appoints the following senators as members of the committee on the part of the Senate to escort the President of the United States into the House chamber.
I think one thing that I'm noticing is a difference between the way that former Vice President Harris and Speaker Mike Johnson were talking last year versus now.
I mean, it's so much more jovial with Vice President Vance and Speaker Johnson than it was.
It's so much more kind of homeboy.
These people know each other and they're kind of on the same side.
It's just interesting to watch the differences, you know, just a year.
So, I mean, Justice Alito has been skipping this for quite a few years after, you know, like sort of some of his motions and kind of mouthings kind of caught the cameras during one of Barack Obama's addresses.
Thomas has also skipped quite a few lately.
And, you know, it's not surprising to me because I do think that some people are feeling like that they don't have to be there.
They've done this before.
A lot of them have done this before, even for people who have, you know, are relatively new.
We have about a minute and a half before William McFarlane, the House Sergeant at Arms, is scheduled to announce, Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States, et cetera.
What are you listening for in tonight's speech, Jason Dick?
Well, he said that they had been on the phone with both their Mexican and Canadian counterparts trying to make a deal, and that President Trump may announce, if not here, maybe tomorrow, that they are pulling back some of the tariffs, not completely letting them go, but certainly pulling them back as long as these countries say and then become more forceful on issues like fentanyl, on issues that the reason why these tariffs are put in place.
But I think it's just the reality is that Trump saw the stock markets.
He is somebody who follows the stock markets.
He follows them quite religiously, and they were going back and forth, back and forth, really kind of freaking out negatively about these tariffs.
And so I don't think that the White House will be able to say quite credibly that that wasn't the reason or that wasn't a reason as to why they're kind of saying we're going to pull these back.
But certainly only time will tell what percentage that is, how much that is, and whether or not they still do reciprocal tariffs on April 2nd is.
And Melania Trump, who was on Capitol Hill yesterday as well.
Was that a surprise to you down at the White House that she came down?
Here comes Mrs. Trump.
She's sitting with her guests.
Jenna gave us some guests earlier.
They include some revenge porn victims, the comparatory family that was, her father was killed in Butler of Pennsylvania as she's sitting with her guests there.
To answer your question, I wasn't surprised to see her.
I mean, I think those were her first public remarks since Donald Trump took office.
There were some questions about how much she would be in Washington, how frequently she'd be around.
But I think that there's a real shift in energy, not just from the president, but also from her office, trying to do things much differently this time around.
It is sort of odd to have something like this with, I mean, there's so much, we're paying attention to the fashion because of some of the protests and so forth, having just done the Oscars two nights ago.
I don't know if President Trump will be there as long.
I mean, in that span, Joe Biden had like two hot mic moments that went viral.
I mean, he was there for forever.
I don't know if you expect President Trump to be a lot long, but the reality is that, as I've talked to people close to him, he is enjoying this moment.
He's happy to be back in the White House.
He's happy to have a party that responds to him, that respects him.
And he's happy, you know, back to being the center of everything.
And so I think you're going to see him show that happiness, shaking hands with his friends, shaking hands, potentially people who don't like him very much, Democrats, kind of pushing them to say something potentially.
He's kind of reveling in this moment that he has now that he's back in the White House.
And so I think he is going to be there a long time.
Whether or not he's there as long as Joe Biden, I think only time will tell because Joe Biden, I mean, I remember being there, I mean, being, you know, covering it last year and being like, dang, can you leave?
Yeah, I would guess too that like some of that is, there's a little bit of wistfulness, you know, like that Biden was running for reelection, but who knows what kind of doubts he may have had about his own, you know, his own path.
And this is like a beginning as opposed to just sort of an end, even if it seems like we've been in this loop for a while.
Yeah, I mean, RFK is having quite the moment right now, too, with this measles outbreak, kind of going back and forth between whether or not he should be promoting vaccines, whether or not he should be promoting more homeopathic remedies that aren't necessarily shown to have much weight against a measles outbreak.
I would be interested to see if Donald Trump brings that up.
Yeah, I mean, it is going to be incumbent upon the president to have the American people understand why he's putting in place these tariffs that in a lot of ways have a negative connotation, even amongst people within his own party.
They're not necessarily one of those quote-unquote conservative values.
It's something that even as lawmakers publicly say we are okay with giving Trump the latitude on tariffs, certainly privately they're concerned about them.
They don't like them.
And so I think that he's going to have to explain why.
Of course, he says that tariffs are his fourth favorite word in the dictionary.
It used to be his first.
I would be surprised if he does not repeat that again in an ad lib.
But yeah, I think that tariffs are going to be a large part of this.
For viewers who are seeing a State of the Union or a joint session for the first time, on your screen, the Republicans will be on the left and the Democrats will be on the right.