Trump speech : President touts progress as Dems walk out” When President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, he focused on DOGE’s massive federal budget cuts, immigration, inflation, and anti-DEI initiatives. America is back,” Trump said, kicking off his speech to applause from fellow Republicans and vowing that his administration is “just getting started.”

Since beginning his second term, the president has teed up tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, fired thousands of federal workers as part of a campaign to cut government spending and berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.

They’re all moves and moments the president is addressing as he speaks directly to both chambers of Congress, Supreme Court justices, honored guests and other officials.Trump lists what he calls his “bold actions”, including sweeping funding freezes and renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America

He says there will be “tax cuts for everybody” and promises to balance the federal budget

Trump praises his billionaire ally Elon Musk, who receives loud cheers from the Republican side of the room

The speech comes after Trump paused military aid to Ukraine and announced sweeping 25% tariffs on goods entering the US from Canada and Mexico

Senator Elissa Slotkin has been tapped by the Democrats to deliver the opposition party’s rebuttal to Trump’s address

Trump takes credit for plummeting migrant crossings

“Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history—and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded,” Trump says.

“The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation to secure the border… but it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”

It is correct that illegal border crossings have plunged to their lowest level in years, but there is context missing from Trump’s claim. Stay with us as we bring you analysis and fact checking of some of Trump’s remarks.

Trump praises his wife, Melania, who he says has “devoted herself” to the foster community, and her two guests who were helped by the First Lady’s programs.

He mentions the Take It Down Act – which would make it a crime to post non-consensual intimate imagery online. Melania visited Capitol Hill on Monday to press for passage of the legislation.

Trump says he “[looks] forward to signing that into law”.

“I’m gonna use that for myself… nobody gets treated worse than I do online,” the president says.

Trump touts trillions of dollars of investments in US

Trump says the US has received $1.7t worth of new investments “in just the past few weeks”.

Trump says the investments include: $200b from SoftBank, $500b from OpenAI and Oracle, $500b from Apple, and $165b from a Taiwan semiconducter manufacturer.
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Trump says these investments were achieved without “giving them any money”.

He then criticizes the Biden-era Chips Act and says “it’s a horrible thing”, adding “you should get rid of it”.

Many of those investments so far are pledges to build up manufacturing in the country, and the money has not been deployed yet.

Tariffs will cause ‘disturbance, but we’re OK with that,’ Trump
“Tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs, but protecting the soul of our country,” says Trump, adding that the steep levies he has and will impose on goods from other countries will help fulfil his pledge of “making America rich again”.

“There will be a little disturbance but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much,” he says.

“Look where Biden took us – very low, the lowest we’ve ever been.”

He says that tariffs will help them produce and sell their agricultural products at home.

But he adds there “might be a bit of an indigestion period”, but over time, it will help.

“I love you too,” he says in a message to US farmers.

Many of the tariffs that Canada is imposing in retaliation for the new levies Trump has put in place have to do with agriculture, and China is a key buyer of US food goods. Meanwhile, the US is a net importer of agriculture – it brings in more from other countries than it exports.

Canada and Mexico have “allowed fentanyl to come in to our country at levels never seen before”, the president says.

It’s “killing hundreds and thousands”, he says, and “destroying families”.

He says the two countries are getting billions of dollars in subsidies from the US.

“We’re not going to do that any longer”, he says.

The White House has said that the steep tariffs the US is now imposing on goods from Canada and Mexico are meant to press the countries to stem the flow of fentanyl and migrants into the US. Canada contends that it is not a major supplier of fentanyl to the US.

Donald Trump once again promised to balance the budget in tonight’s speech, prompting a round of applause from Republican legislators. He provided no details about the kind of steep spending cuts such a promise would require.

In fact, he quickly turned to discussing the tax cuts he hopes Congress will enact – including his campaign promises of no taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security.

Any of those cuts, if enacted, would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the current nearly $2tn budget deficit.