State of the Union address: Trump sells his agenda ahead of tough midterm fight

WASHINGTON (CN) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday night urged voters to keep Republicans in charge of Congress, thumping his record in the first year of his second term as full of "wins" and urging lawmakers to continue passing legislation to advance his agenda.

While the president’s State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress featured a few tense moments with Democrats, his remarks stuck largely to the issues as he and the GOP stare down the barrel of a tough midterm election fight in the fall.

Declaring that, under his administration, the U.S. was in a “golden age,” Trump wasted no time touting what he said were some of the key policy achievements of his White House.

“Twelve months ago, I had just inherited a nation in crisis,” said the president. “Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before.”

Trump’s State of the Union remarks come at a pivotal time for his administration and Republicans in Congress, as the polls show the president is underwater with voters on many of his central policy issues and Democrats appear more likely than ever to take back the House and possibly the Senate in November’s midterm elections. But Trump insisted to lawmakers that he had gotten inflation under control, slashed crime rates across the country and implemented the “strongest and most secure border in history by far.”

“People are saying, please, please, please, we’re winning too much,” the president quipped. “And I say, no, no, no, you’re going to win again and you’re going to win bigger than ever.”

Trump cited some of what he views as accomplishments under the first year of his administration, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — a sweeping set of White House policy priorities shepherded through Congress last summer. The president thanked congressional Republicans for their work on the legislation, saying they had delivered in particular on “really important and necessary” tax cuts.

He also pointed to what he called the White House’s “war on fraud,” spearheaded by Vice President JD Vance and a group of administration officials — including the Justice Department’s newly created assistant attorney general for fraud enforcement.

And Trump made some new policy announcements during his remarks, including a “ratepayer protection pledge” he said he’d negotiated with tech companies looking to build artificial intelligence data centers. The president said the deal was aimed at reducing energy costs associated with such facilities, and that tech companies would be obligated to pay for their own power needs.

The president spent little time addressing his political foes, pausing on only a few occasions to spar with Democrats who heckled him during his remarks. In one particularly tense moment, Trump said Democrats should be “ashamed” of their opposition to his administration’s aggressive immigration sweeps.

“You’re killing Americans,” Michigan Representative Rashida Tlaib called out at the president. “You’re shooting them.”

Trump also refrained from attacking justices of the Supreme Court who attended the State of the Union Tuesday, despite calling the high court a “disgrace” after it ruled last week that he could not use emergency powers to implement punishing import tariffs without congressional approval.

“Everything was working well — countries that were ripping us off were paying us hundreds of billions of dollars,” said the president. “And then, four days ago, there was an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court.”

But Trump stowed harsh language for the justices, choosing instead to refer to the tariffs decision as “unfortunate” and “disappointing.”

Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Justice Elena Kagan and Justice Amy Coney Barrett attended the address. Kavanaugh was the only member of the bench present who dissented in the ruling striking down Trump’s tariffs. All the justices remained stone-faced during the president’s remarks about the decision.

Trump also urged congressional Republicans to pass a slate of legislation aimed at advancing his agenda ahead of the midterms. He came out in support of a bill to ban lawmakers from trading stocks, and threw his support behind the SAVE America Act, voter ID legislation currently working its way through Congress.

“It’s very simple,” he said. “All voters must show voter ID … they must also show proof of citizenship.”

The president took aim at Democrats, who called out at him as he went to bat for the proposed legislation, and alluded to his long-debunked claim that his loss to former President Joe Biden in the 2020 election was illegitimate. “They want to cheat,” he said. “They have cheated … their policy is so bad, the only way they can get elected is to cheat.”

Ahead of Trump’s State of the Union, dozens of Democrats said that they would not attend the event in protest — and as the president’s remarks got underway, the Democratic side of the chamber was sparsely populated. Several lawmakers got up and walked out during the speech, including Virginia Senator Mark Warner, Pennsylvania Representative Madeleine Dean and Connecticut Representative Joe Courtney, among others.

By the end of the president’s roughly two-hour address, the Democratic side of the chamber had significantly cleared out.

Aside from some heckling from Democrats, there were no major disruptions to Trump’s speech. Texas Representative Al Green, who was removed last year from the president’s joint address to Congress after interrupting his remarks, was ejected from the chamber for a second time on Tuesday.

But Green did not halt proceedings, choosing instead to display a sign which read “Black people aren’t apes” — an apparent reference to an AI-generated video shared on social media and later deleted by the president which depicted former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama as apes.

Several Republican lawmakers attempted to intervene in Green’s protest, including Oklahoma Senator Markwayne Mullin, who approached the Texas Democrat and attempted to snatch his sign.

In a news conference held before the State of the Union, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer predicted that Trump’s address would display a leader “in a huge bubble” and that the president would claim that the country was trending in the right direction.

“Tonight, the American people will see a president whose ego does not let him see reality,” said Schumer. “The reality of the pain in America because of Trump’s policies.”

Trump, meanwhile, struck a reflective tone as he wrapped up his remarks Tuesday night, alluding to the country’s 250^th anniversary, celebrated this year.

“Just a single long human lifespan separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight,” said the president. “Everything our nation has done, everything we have achieved has been the work of those few great lifetimes. In those brief chapters, Americans built this nation from 13 humble colonies into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom.”

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