AMNA NAWAZ: And welcome to PBS News live special coverage of President Trump's address to a joint session of Congress and the Democrats' response.

I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

The first six weeks of President Trump's second term have seen an administration moving at warp speed.

He has cut tens of thousands of people from the government work force, deported thousands more, upended U.S. alliances, and signed dozens of executive orders, many of which are being hashed out in court right now.

AMNA NAWAZ: The president is on Capitol Hill tonight to tout what he has done and to lay out his plans of what's still to come.

We're looking now at live video from inside the House chamber.

That's where the president will be speaking just moments from now.

And, of course, his Republican Party has unified control of that government, with majorities in both the House and the Senate.

But the president will address a country that's deeply divided.

In just a moment, you're going to hear the traditional announcement from the House sergeant at arms, and President Trump will make his way down the aisle.

Our -- on Capitol Hill tonight is our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez.

So, Laura, tell us what the overall message is that the White House wants to get across tonight.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, the White House is saying that their message tonight is about renewing America.

And we do have some of the excerpts based on the prepared remarks that the president is expected to give.

He's expected to blame his predecessor, Joe Biden, for the price of eggs.

And he's going to say that one of his major focuses is on defeating inflation, that despite the fact, Amna, that the president just instituted some new tariffs on Canada and Mexico that both conservative and liberal economists alike say will increase the price for consumers in the country, especially on vegetables and fruits and other goods.

The president is going to also say, though, that one of his highest priorities is to provide relief to Americans, to workers across the country, even though, again, we have been hearing from a number of workers across the country, especially federal workers in the past few weeks, saying that they have been stunned by being fired, by the cuts that are being made by Elon Musk across the board.

And, speaking of Elon Musk, he is in the chamber tonight, Amna.

AMNA NAWAZ: That's our White House correspondent, Laura Barron-Lopez, on Capitol Hill tonight.

Laura, thank you.

We will check back in with you in just a few.

GEOFF BENNETT: And our Capitol Hill correspondent, Lisa Desjardins, is in the House chamber tonight.

Lisa, we can hear you.

We can't see you because you have what is a coveted position just above the House Rostrum there.

So you have eyes on the floor.

Give us a sense of what you're seeing.

And also let us know what you have been hearing from lawmakers about their expectations for this speech this evening as we watch the first lady, Melania Trump, make her way to the -- her seat there.

LISA DESJARDINS: That's right.

It is my great privilege to be in this position.

And you're right.

The crowd is now -- the Republicans on their feet cheering for first lady Melania Trump.

The Trump family is near her in that same box.

We do not see Barron Trump, but the rest of the Trump children are here.

And Elon Musk, as Laura reported, is here.

I have to say, he's almost hard to recognize because he's wearing a suit, a tie, and no hat.

He is not in a seat.

He is standing in the aisle right now.

He also received applause when he walked into the room tonight.

Now, you will notice Democrats right now are remaining seated as the first lady greets her guests.

You will notice Democratic women wearing pink.

That is their bright form of protest tonight and solidarity with one another.

This room really is two different planets between Republicans so excited, Democrats almost in mourning over this moment.

GEOFF BENNETT: Lisa Desjardins, our thanks to you.

As we watch members of the Cabinet make their way in, led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, let's bring in our panel for the evening with us in the studio to help with context and analysis tonight.

We have got Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter, David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, Jonathan Capehart, associate editor for The Washington Post, and Tiffany Smiley, who was a Republican candidate for Congress in Washington state.

Tiffany, we will start with you because you worked with President Trump during the first term on VA reform.

So give us a sense of how he can set a framework for what has really just been a breakneck pace these first six weeks, as he and Elon Musk and their allies set to really reorient the federal government.

TIFFANY SMILEY (R), Former Washington Senatorial Candidate: That's right.

And it's absolutely needed because he was handed an economy that wasn't working for the American people.

We were on the verge of World War III.

So, it's been amazing to watch him work so fast and so hard for the American people.

And, really, he's delivering on the promises that he campaigned on, in sharing from securing our border to getting our economy back on track.

He's really delivering on those promises.

And, look, he -- media is having a hard time keeping up with him.

And so the American people might think maybe they don't like some of the ways that he is delivering on this, but there's no easy way to accomplish these monumental tasks.

It has to be done.

And President Trump does a really good job of painting a vision of a better future.

And that's what I think he will focus on in his speech, is really showing the American people that there is hope, and we will renew America and we will get it back.

AMNA NAWAZ: Seeing a live picture there as members of his Cabinet continue to make their way into the chamber.

There's EPA Chief Lee Zeldin, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as well.

Amy Walter, as we watch everyone file in and take their seats in anticipation of the president's remarks now, we mentioned he's speaking to a deeply divided country.

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: We do have some latest poll numbers that speak to how people feel about what they have been seeing so far from President Trump and his second administration.

Tell us about the audience outside that chamber tonight.

AMY WALTER: Yes, the outside.

Who's watching?

He has a very good story to tell, especially for people who voted for Donald Trump.

They have definitely got a return on the investment very quickly.

He has followed up on many of the promises that he made on the campaign trail.

For those, though, that either didn't vote for him or voted for him, but weren't necessarily as excited about some of these things that he's doing today, whether it's DOGE or maybe some of the things on the border, what they were really expecting was to see more done on the economy, that the price of stuff was going to go down.

So I think, for the audience outside of this, what he's really going to need to do is to explain how indeed he is going to bring inflation down, how tariffs are going to help regular consumers with the cost of stuff, and that there's a plan going forward.

The other thing, I think, is -- that's really fascinating, we have a divided country.

We have a divided Congress.

I don't know the last time that a first-term president came into a Congress who he is really not -- he doesn't need to use them as much -- more -- normally, presidents come into the Congress, they say, here's what I want to do in my first term.

AMNA NAWAZ: Right.

AMY WALTER: He can come in there and say, I have already done pretty much everything I have wanted to do.

I'd love it if you guys helped me with a couple other things.

He's got the tax bill and more money for immigration reform.

But he is coming in basically saying the executive authority here has been really the thing that I will continue to use.

AMNA NAWAZ: Yes.

AMY WALTER: And I don't know that I need you guys that much.

AMNA NAWAZ: And the driving force of a lot of the action we have seen so far, right?

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes, he's addressing a Congress that he's largely sidelined.

AMY WALTER: He's either sidelined, or they have not put up any opposition to him.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

David Brooks, it strikes me that President Trump is addressing the nation tonight having jettisoned some 80 years' worth of American foreign policy.

He is really setting the U.S. on a realignment of the post-World War II alliance.

Is there anything that he could say tonight -- Amy was talking about how she expects him to explain to the American public what he's doing.

Is there anything he could say on that front that would allay some of your concerns?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I'm expecting an apology to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

(LAUGHTER) DAVID BROOKS: White House -- E have been a country that has been international since World War II.

And it's always been about breaking down barriers and lowering walls, lowering trade barriers.

And this is a president who ran on office in 2016 on bragging about a wall.

And in the second term, he's built walls around us versus our allies, versus Canada, versus China -- or versus Mexico.

And so there's a lot of walls going up.

What I'm looking for in this speech is, why is he doing tariffs?

Like, there are a lot of possible reasons he could be doing tariffs.

He wants to get Canada to crack down on some immigration or drug importation, or maybe he thinks the Canadian auto industry should all move to Michigan.

Like, there are a lot of different reasons, and they have radically different implication of why he's doing the policy.

And so he's done a lot of policies that are a little of this, little of that.

I would just love to know what the thinking is behind it.

Like, what's the strategy here?

Because it really makes a difference to how businesses will have to operate, consumer confidence, economic instability.

If there is a plan here, it may be a good plan, it may be a bad plan, but I'd love to know there's a plan.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan, speaking of strategy, for Democrats in the room -- and we know a few lawmakers have said that they are boycotting.

They're not attending tonight.

We spoke earlier with Pramila Jayapal.

And she mentioned that Democrats will be dignified, they will be silently protesting in their seats as they listen to the president speak tonight, those who've chosen to be there in the chamber.

You have tens of millions of people potentially watching this tonight, people who are looking to see how this party will be in opposition to the president in some unified way.

Is this the right response for them in this moment on this night?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Yes, because this won't be the only opportunity for them to respond.

This is the biggest stage that the president will have to address the nation since being inaugurated.

He has done a lot of things that have angered and upset not just the Democrats in the chamber, but people around the country.

And I think there are a lot of people within the Democratic Party who are looking to members to reflect the anger and the frustration.

And I think we will see a range of reactions, from sitting silently.

I wouldn't be surprised and it's been reported that some members of Congress have said that they will walk out if he says specific lines that they do not like.

I think that is more than appropriate, infinitely more appropriate than yelling "You lie" to the president of the United States, as happened to President Obama when -- during his first term.

There is a lot of frustration with -- look, I will give the president his props.

He has done a lot in the six to seven weeks he has been in office.

That doesn't necessarily mean that they were the right things to do.

And we're looking every day thousands of people, not just in Washington, but across the country, who are losing their jobs.

These are not faceless bureaucrats.

These are people from safeguarding the nuclear stockpile to letting us know whether there are hurricanes and storms coming.

These are people who are dedicated public servants who love the jobs that they do, and they're being wiped away.

So I don't know if the president is going to address those concerns.

I do expect a lot of crowing and a lot of chest-beating, which is his right.

But I also expect this to be a festival of meanness, because that is what I have grown accustomed to when hearing Donald Trump speak.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tiffany, in our latest PBS News/NPR/Marist poll, 56 percent of Americans said that, since taking office, Donald Trump has rushed to make changes without considering their impact.

Could he do more to help bring the American people along in this process, to explain to the public why they are dismantling certain government agencies, why they have fired the government workers they have chosen to fire, so on and so forth?

TIFFANY SMILEY: Yes.

And, look, I think he will start to lay that out tonight for the American people.

But we have to remember, when he was in office in 2017 starting his term, he learned a lot, and then he had four years to think about how to solve these problems.

And I know that he realized you sort of have to rip the Band-Aid off.

There's no easy way to do it.

Everyone -- even Democrats talk about reducing the government and reducing spending, but no one's actually willing to do it until Trump came along.

And I think this has been the most successful first 40 -- what are we at, 43 days of any American president.

He is moving fast.

He's moving furious.

And that's what it takes.

Change is good.

Government hates change.

They don't like it.

And so Trump's doing delivery on every level.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's listen in now live on the House chamber floor.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) AMNA NAWAZ: You see there President Trump has entered the chamber.

He's making his way down the aisle, followed by members of the Republican leadership and other lawmakers.

We will go live to his remarks, of course, as he begins.

But, as he makes his way down the aisle, our own Lisa Desjardins has a key vantage point in the chamber.

Lisa, tell us about what you see up in the room right now, and also weigh in on some of the conversation we have been having here about some sentiment among Americans that perhaps the administration's moving too fast, approval ratings dipping slightly for the president.

Is that something Republicans you speak with our cognizant of and feel that could make them vulnerable?

LISA DESJARDINS: This is a very hot and cold moment for some Republicans I talk to.

This is a moment of victory, celebration, electricity for them.

But, for some of them, especially in districts where there are a great deal of federal workers, or districts where there are farmers worried about tariffs, there is a slight note of caution.

No one seems too worried yet.

But talking to senators and House members about this speech, they want to make sure that Trump can appeal to the widest group of Americans possible tonight, especially in those swing districts.

They are worried that perhaps some of their constituents may think he's going too far.

That idea of a festival of meanness, as Jonathan said, they're worried that Americans might perceive something like that, even in this great moment of celebration and victory for them.

I will tell you, as I look at the president entering the chamber, I want to say that those along the aisle have been there for more than five hours trying to get -- oh, I'm sorry -- senators entering the chamber -- trying to get that key position to be in place as the cameras show them and the president.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a key Trump ally, is wearing a MAGA red hat.

I believe it says "Trump was right about everything."

So -- and then you see Democrats to the side, their hands folded, almost as if there's not an event going on at all, next to them, Republicans openly celebrating.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Lisa, we should say, as the president was making his way in, we saw a member of Congress, Melanie Stansbury, the congresswoman from New Mexico, holding a sign that said "This is not normal."

Amy Walter, how do Democrats navigate this current moment, where they feel the need to push back against Donald Trump and don't want to be seen defending the status quo... AMY WALTER: That's right.

That's... (LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: ... after an election where the... AMY WALTER: Where the status quo was rejected.

GEOFF BENNETT: Resoundingly so, yes.

AMY WALTER: Yes, yes, not only the status quo, but the fact that Democrats are now seen as really the party of the establishment and more of the elite class, which is not a benefit in this day and age.

And, in fact, I saw some polling recently.

A Democratic firm came out with polling that found independent voters now believe that Democratic -- Democrats as a party more closely represent CEOs and business than represent middle-class and working-class voters.

So there is an identity crisis going on with Democrats.

But when you're in the minority party, especially the minority power -- party in the House, there really is nothing you can do.

You can object, but there is not much more you can do to make your policies and your frustrations evident.

AMNA NAWAZ: Let's listen in live now as President Trump addresses the joint session of Congress.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Thank you.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

It's a great honor.

Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Speaker Johnson, Vice President Vance, the first lady of the United States... (APPLAUSE) Members of the United States Congress, thank you very much.

And to my fellow citizens, America is back.

DONALD TRUMP: Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the golden age of America.

From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country.

We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: I return to this chamber tonight to report that America's momentum is back, our spirit is back, our pride is back, our confidence is back, and the American dream is surging bigger and better than ever before.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: The American dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again.

It's never been anything like it.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: the presidential Election of November 5 was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades.

We won all seven swing states, giving us an Electoral College victory of 312 votes.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: We won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country ... (BOOING) CROWD: USA, USA, USA.

DONALD TRUMP: ... and won counties in our country 2,700 to 525 on a map that reads almost completely red for Republican.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Now, for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.

In fact, it's an astonishing record, 27-point swing, the most ever.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Likewise, small business optimism saw its single largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump.

(BOOING) REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Members are directed to uphold and maintain the quorum in the House and to cease any further disruptions.

That's your warning.

(BOOING) REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of the quorum, and the chair is prepared to direct the sergeant at arms to restore order to the joint session.

(APPLAUSE) REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Mr. Green, take your seat.

Take your seat, sir.

Take your seat.

(BOOING) REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Finding that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum, the Chair now directs the sergeant at arms to restore order.

Remove this gentleman from the chamber.

(APPLAUSE) (SINGING) (CROSSTALK) REP. MIKE JOHNSON: Members are directed to uphold and maintain decorum in the House.

Mr. President, you continue.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

Over the past six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions, a record to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth all across our wonderful land.

The people elected me to do the job, and I'm doing it.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency -- it's our presidency.

(CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: Is the most successful in the history of our nation.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: By many.

And what makes it even more impressive is that, do you know who number two is?

George Washington.

How about that?

How about that?

I don't know about that list, but.

But we'll take it.

Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border.

And I deployed the U.S. Military and Border Patrol to repel the invasion of our country.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And what a job they've done.

As a result.

Illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded.

Ever.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: They heard my words and they chose not to come.

Much easier that way.

In comparison, under Joe Biden, the worst president in American history, there were hundreds of thousands of illegal crossings a month.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And virtually all of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums were released into our country.

Who would want to do that?

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.

Nothing I can do.

I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.

They won't do it no matter what.

Five.

Five times I have been up here.

It's very sad.

And it just shouldn't be this way.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: So Democrats sitting before me for just this one night, why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America?

For the good of our nation, let's work together and let's truly make America great again.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Every day, my administration is fighting to deliver the change America needs to bring a future that America deserves.

And we're doing it.

This is a time for big dreams and bold action.

Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: I terminated the ridiculous green new scam.

I withdrew from the unfair Paris climate accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars... (CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: ... that other countries were not paying.

I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I also withdrew from the anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: We ended all of Biden's environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable.

And, importantly, we ended the last administration's insane electric vehicle mandate... (CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: ... saving our autoworkers and companies from economic destruction.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: To unshackle our economy, I have directed that, for every one new regulation, 10 old regulations must be eliminated... DONALD TRUMP: ... just like I did in my very successful first term.

DONALD TRUMP: And, in that first term, we set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations, like no other president had done before.

We ordered all federal workers to return to the office.

They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job.

DONALD TRUMP: And we have ended weaponized government where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent, like me.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: How did that work out?

Not too good.

DONALD TRUMP: Not too good.

DONALD TRUMP: And I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America.

It's back.

DONALD TRUMP: And two days ago, I signed an order making English the official language of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: I renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And, likewise, I renamed, for a great president, William McKinley, Mount McKinley again.

DONALD TRUMP: Beautiful Alaska.

We love Alaska.

We have ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And our country will be woke no longer.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: We believe that, whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer, or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender.

Very important.

DONALD TRUMP: You should be hired based on merit.

And the Supreme Court, in a brave and very powerful decision, has allowed us to do so.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools.

And I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.

DONALD TRUMP: I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women's sports.

DONALD TRUMP: Three years ago, Payton McNabb was an all-star high school athlete, one of the best, preparing for a future in college sports.

But when her girls' volleyball match was invaded by a male, he smashed the ball so hard in Payton's face, causing traumatic brain injury, partially paralyzing her right side and ending her athletic career.

It was a shot like she's never seen before.

She's never seen anything like it.

Payton is here tonight in the gallery.

And, Payton, from now on, schools will kick the men off the girls' team or they will lose all federal funding.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And if you really want to see numbers, just take a look at what happened in the women's boxing, weight lifting, track and field, swimming or cycling where a male recently finished a long distance race five hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman for a new record by five hours, broke the record by five hours.

It's demeaning for women and it's very bad for our country.

We're not going to put up with it any longer.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: What I have just described is only a small fraction of the common sense revolution that is now because of us sweeping the entire world.

Common sense has become a common theme, and we will never go back -- never, ever going to let that happen.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families.

As you know, we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare.

AUDIENCE: Yes!

DONALD TRUMP: Their policies drove up, energy prices, pushed up grocery costs and drove the necessities of life out of reach for millions and millions of Americans.

They've never had anything like it.

We suffered the worst inflation in 48 years.

But perhaps even in the history of our country, they're not sure.

As president, I'm fighting every day to reverse this damage and make America affordable again.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control.

(BOOING) DONALD TRUMP: The egg price is out of control, and we're working hard to get it back down.

Secretary, do a good job on that.

You inherited a total mess from the previous administration.

Do a good job.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy.

The previous administration cut the number of new oil and gas leases by 95 percent, slowed pipeline construction to a halt, and closed more than 100 power plants.

We are opening up many of those power plants right now.

DONALD TRUMP: And frankly, we have never seen anything like it.

That's why on my first day in office, I declared a national energy emergency.

DONALD TRUMP: As you've heard me say many times, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth, and by far, and now, I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it.

It's called drill, baby, drill.

DONALD TRUMP: My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea, and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each.

There's never been anything like that one.

It will be truly spectacular.

It's all set to go.

The permitting is gotten.

And later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: To further combat inflation, we will not only be reducing the cost of energy, but we'll be ending the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars.

DONALD TRUMP: And to that end, I am I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, perhaps you've heard of it, perhaps.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, Elon.

He's working very hard.

He didn't need this.

He didn't need this.

Thank you very much.

We appreciate it.

Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it, I believe.

DONALD TRUMP: They just don't want to admit that.

Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified.

$22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for illegal aliens.

$45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Burma.

$40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants.

Nobody knows what that is.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: $8 million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of.

DONALD TRUMP: $60 million for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America.

$60 million.

$8 million for making mice transgender.

DONALD TRUMP: This is real.

$32 million for a left-wing propaganda operation in Moldova.

$10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique.

$20 million for the Arab Sesame Street in the Middle East.

It's a program, $20 million for a program.

$1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of Homes Committee headed up, and we know she's involved, just at the last moment the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams.

(BOOING) DONALD TRUMP: A $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish monitoring.

$1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia.

Fourteen million for social cohesion in Mali.

Fifty-nine million dollars for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.

(BOOING) DONALD TRUMP: He's a real estate developer.

He's done very well.

Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to increase vegan local climate action innovation in Zambia.

Forty-two million dollars for social and behavior change in Uganda.

Fourteen million dollars for improving public procurement in Serbia.

Forty-seven million dollars for improving learning outcomes in Asia.

Asia is doing very well with learning.

(LAUGHTER) You know what we're doing, should use it ourselves.

And $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education, the most ever paid, nothing even like it.

Under the Trump administration, all of these scams, and there are far worse but I didn't think it was appropriate to talk about them.

They're so bad.

Many more have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by Elon, and we appreciate it.

We found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.

(APPLAUSE) And we've taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation and other things.

Taken back a lot of that money.

We got it just in time.

(INAUDIBLE YELLING IN CROWD) This is just the beginning.

The Government Accountability Office, a federal government office, has estimated annual fraud of over $500 billion in our nation.

And we are working very hard to stop it.

We're going to.

We're also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors, and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.

Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old.

(BOOING) (INAUDIBLE YELLING IN CROWD) It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.

I don't know any of them.

I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly.

Three-point-four-seven million people from ages 120 to 129.

Three-point-nine million people from ages 130 to 139.

UNIDENTIFIED: Those are lies!

DONALD TRUMP: Three-point-five million people from ages 140 to 149, and money is being paid to many of them.

And we're searching right now.

In fact, Pam, good luck, good luck.

You're going to find it.

But a lot of money is paid out to people because it just keeps getting paid and paid and nobody does -- and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country.

One-point-three million people from ages 150 to 159.

And over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old.

UNIDENTIFIED: Stop lying!

DONALD TRUMP: We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby.

(LAUGHTER) (APPLAUSE) Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229.

One person between the age of 240 and 249.

And one person is listed at 360 years of age.

More than 100 years.

More than 100 years older than our country.

But we're going to find out where that money is going, and it's not going to be pretty, by slashing all of the fraud, waste, and theft we can find.

We will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors, and put more money in the pockets of American families.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And today, interest rates took a beautiful drop, big, beautiful drop.

It's about time.

And in the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years, balance the federal budget.

We're going to balance it.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: With that goal in mind, we have developed in great detail what we are calling the gold card, which goes on sale very, very soon.

For $5 million, we will allow the most successful job creating people from all over the world to buy a path to U.S. citizenship.

It's like the green card, but better and more sophisticated.

And these people will have to pay tax in our country.

They won't have to pay tax from where they came.

The money that they've made, you wouldn't want to do that, but they have to pay tax, create jobs.

They'll also be taking people out of colleges and paying for them so that we can keep them in our country instead of having them being forced out.

Number one at the top school, as an example, being forced out and not being allowed to stay and create tremendous numbers of jobs and great success for a company out there.

So while we take out the criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators who are allowed to enter our country under the open border policy of these people, the Democrats, the Biden administration, the open border insane policies that you've allowed to destroy our country.

We will now bring in brilliant, hardworking job creating people.

They're going to pay a lot of money and we're going to reduce our debt with that money.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change for nearly 100 years.

The federal bureaucracy has grown until it has crushed our freedoms, ballooned our deficits and held back America's potential in every possible way.

The nation founded by pioneers and risk takers now drowns under millions and millions of pages of regulations and debt.

Approvals that should take 10 days to get, instead, take 10 years, 15 years and even 20 years before you reject it.

Meanwhile, we have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work.

My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy and we will restore true democracy to America again.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately because we are draining the swamp.

It's very simple.

And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody.

They're in there.

They're waiting for you to vote.

And I'm sure that the people on my right, I don't mean the Republican right, but my right, right here.

I'm sure you're going to vote for those tax cuts because otherwise I don't believe the people will ever vote you into office.

So I'm doing a big favor by telling you that.

But I know this group is going to be voting for the tax.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

It's a very, very big part of our plan.

We had tremendous success in our first term with it.

A very big part of our plan.

We're seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board and to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation.

I'm calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security benefits for our great seniors.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, but only if the car is made in America.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And by the way, we're going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody has ever seen.

Plants are opening up all over the place.

Deals are being made, never seen.

That's a combination of the election win and tariffs.

It's a beautiful word, isn't it?

That along with our other policies will allow our auto industry to absolutely boom.

It's going to boom.

Spoke to the majors today.

All three.

The top people and they're so excited.

In fact already numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America, with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And this has taken place since our great victory on November 5, a date which will hopefully go down as one of the most important in the history of our country.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: In addition, as part of our tax cuts, we want to cut taxes on domestic production and all manufacturing.

And just as we did before, we will provide 100 percent expensing.

It will be retroactive to January 20th, 2025.

And it was one of the main reasons why our tax cuts were so successful in our first term, giving us the most successful economy in the history of our country.

First term, we had a great first term.

DONALD TRUMP: If you don't make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases a rather large one.

Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries.

On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada.

Have you heard of them?

And countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them.

It's very unfair.

India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100 percent.

China's average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them.

And South Korea's average tariff is four times higher.

Think of that four times higher.

And we give so much help militarily and in so many other ways to South Korea.

But that's what happens.

This is happening by friend and foe.

This system is not fair to the United States and never was.

And so on April 2 -- I wanted to make it April 1, but I didn't want to be accused of April Fool's Day.

DONALD TRUMP: That's what -- that's not -- just one day would cost us a lot of money.

But we're going to do it in April.

I'm a very superstitious person.

April 2.

Reciprocal tariffs kick in and whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them.

That's reciprocal, back and forth, whatever they tax us, we will tax them.

DONALD TRUMP: If they do non-monetary tariffs, to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market.

There's a lot of that, too.

They don't even allow us in their market.

We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.

I did it with China and I did it with others, and the Biden administration couldn't do anything about it because it was so much money.

They couldn't do anything about it.

We have been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on earth, and we will not let that happen any longer.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Much has been said over the last three months about Mexico and Canada, but we have very large deficits with both of them.

But, even more importantly, they have allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens, and many very young, beautiful people, destroying families.

Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

They are, in effect, receiving subsidies of hundreds of billions of dollars.

We pay subsidies to Canada and to Mexico of hundreds of billions of dollars, and the United States will not be doing that any longer.

We're not going to do it any longer.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thanks to our America first policies we're putting into place, we have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in America in just the past few weeks... (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: ... the combination of the election and our economic policies that people love.

SoftBank, one of the most brilliant anywhere in the world, announced a $200 billion investment.

OpenAI and Oracle, Larry Ellison, announced $500 billion investment, which they wouldn't have done if Kamala had won.

DONALD TRUMP: Apple announced $500 billion investment.

Tim Cook called me.

He said: "I cannot spend it fast enough."

It's going to be much higher than that, I believe.

They will be building their plants here, instead of in China.

And, just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor, the biggest in the world, most powerful in the world, has a tremendous amount, 97 percent of the market, announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the USA.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And we're not giving them any money.

Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing.

We give hundreds of billions of dollars, and it doesn't mean a thing.

They take our money and they don't spend it.

All that meant to them -- we're giving them no money.

All that was important to them was, they didn't want to pay the tariffs.

So they came and they're building.

And many other companies are coming.

We don't have to give them money.

We just want to protect our businesses and our people.

And they will come because they won't have to pay tariffs if they build in America.

So it's very amazing.

You should get rid of the CHIP (sic) Act.

And whatever's left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.

DONALD TRUMP: Our new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer.

I love the farmer... MAN: Yes!

(CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: ... who will now be selling into our home market, the USA, because nobody is going to be able to compete with you, because those goods that come in from other company -- countries and companies, they're un -- really, really in a bad position in so many different ways.

They're uninspected.

They may be very dirty and disgusting.

And they come in and they pour in, and they hurt our American farmers.

The tariffs will go on agricultural product coming into America.

And our farmers, starting on April 2, it may be a little bit of an adjustment period.

We had that before when I made the deal with China, $50 billion of purchases.

And I said, just bear with me.

And they did.

They did.

Probably have to bear with me again.

And this will be even better.

That was great.

The problem with it was that Biden didn't enforce it.

He didn't enforce it, $50 billion of purchases.

And we were doing great, but Biden did not enforce it.

And it hurt our farmers.

But our farmers are going to have a field day right now.

So, to our farmers, have a lot of fun.

I love you too.

I love you too.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: It's all going to happen.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I have also imposed a 25 percent tariff on foreign aluminum, copper, lumber, and steel, because, if we don't have, as an example, steel, and lots of other things, we don't have a military and, frankly, won't have -- we just won't have a country very long.

Here today is a proud American steelworker, fantastic person from Decatur, Alabama.

Jeff Denard has been working at the same steel plant for 27 years, in a job that has allowed him to serve as the captain of his local volunteer fire department, raised seven children with his beautiful wife, Nicole, and over the years provide a loving home for more than 40 foster children.

So, great job.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, Jeff.

Thank you, Jeff.

Stories like Jeff's remind us that tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs, they're about protecting the soul of our country.

Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again.

And it's happening.

And it will happen rather quickly.

There will be a little disturbance.

But we're OK with that.

It won't be much.

No, you're not all.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: And look -- and look where Biden took us, very low.

The lowest we've ever been.

Jeff, I want to thank you very much.

And I also want to recognize another person who has devoted herself to foster care community.

She worked so hard on it, a very loving person -- our magnificent first lady of the United States.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Melania's work has yielded incredible results, helping prepare our nation's future leaders as they enter the work force.

Our first lady is joined by two impressive young women, very impressive -- Haley Ferguson who benefited from the first lady's Fostering the Future Initiative, and is poised to complete her education and become a teacher.

And Elliston Berry, who became a victim of an illicit deepfake image produced by a peer.

With Elliston's help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act.

And this is so important.

Thank you very much, John.

John Thune, thank you.

Stand up, John.

Thank you, John.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you all very much.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And thank you to John Thune and the Senate.

Great job -- to criminalize the publication of such images online.

It's terrible, terrible thing.

And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law.

Thank you.

And I'm going to use that bill for myself, too, if you don't mind, because nobody gets treated worse than I do online.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: Nobody.

That's great.

Thank you very much to the Senate.

Thank you.

But if we truly care about protecting America's children, no step is more crucial than securing America's borders.

Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States.

Many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members, and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world.

Because of Joe Biden's insane and very dangerous open border policies, they are now strongly embedded in our country, but we are getting them out and getting them out fast.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I want to thank Tom Homan and Kristi -- I want to thank you and Paul of Border Patrol.

I want to thank you.

What a job they've all done.

Everybody, Border Patrol, ICE.

Law enforcement in general is incredible.

We have to take care of our law enforcement.

We have to.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Last year, a brilliant 22-year-old nursing student named Laken Riley, the best in her class, admired by everybody, went out for a jog on the campus of the University of Georgia.

That morning, Laken was viciously attacked, assaulted, beaten, brutalized, and horrifically murdered.

Laken was stolen from us by a savage, illegal alien gang member who was arrested while trespassing across Biden's open southern border and then set loose into the United States under the heartless policies of that failed administration.

It was indeed a failed administration.

He had then been arrested and released in a Democrat run sanctuary city, a disaster before ending the life of this beautiful young angel.

With us this evening are Laken's beloved mother, Allyson, and her sister, Lauren.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Last year, I told Laken's grieving parents that we would ensure their daughter would not have died in vain.

That's why the very first bill I signed into law as your 47th president mandates the detention of all dangerous criminal aliens who threaten public safety.

It's a very strong, powerful act.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: It's called the Laken Riley Act.

So, Allyson and Lauren, America will never ever forget our beautiful Laken Hope Riley.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

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 crosses ever recorded.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation.

We must have legislation to secure the border.

But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

Joe Biden didn't just open our borders, he flew illegal aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals, and communities throughout the country.

Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody's ever seen before.

Beautiful towns destroyed.

Now, just as I promised in my inaugural address, we are achieving the great liberation of America.

DONALD TRUMP: But there still is much work to be done.

Here tonight is a woman I have gotten to know, Alexis Nungaray, from Houston.

Wonderful woman.

Last June, Alexis' 12-year-old daughter, her precious Jocelyn, walk to a nearby convenience store.

She was kidnapped, tied up, assaulted for two hours under a bridge, and horrifically murdered.

Arrested and charged with this heinous crime are two illegal alien monsters from Venezuela, released into America by the last administration through their ridiculous open border.

The death of this beautiful 12-year-old girl and the agony of her mother and family touched our entire nation greatly.

Alexis, I promised that we would always remember your daughter, your magnificent daughter.

And earlier tonight, I signed an order keeping my word to you.

One thing I have learned about Jocelyn is that she loved animals so much.

She loved nature.

Across Galveston Bay, from where Jocelyn lived in Houston, you will find a magnificent national wildlife refuge, a pristine, peaceful, 34,000-acre sanctuary for all of God's creatures on the edge of the Gulf of America.

Alexis, moments ago, I formally renamed that refuge in loving memory of your beautiful daughter, Jocelyn.

So, Mr. Vice President, if you would, may I have the order?

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken's murders were members of the Venezuelan prison gang, the toughest gang, they say, in the world, known as Tren de Aragua.

Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.

DONALD TRUMP: They are now officially in the same category as ISIS, and that's not good for them.

Countless thousands of these terrorists were welcomed into the U.S. by the Biden administration, but now every last one will be rounded up and forcibly removed from our country, or if they're too dangerous, put in jails, standing trial in this country because we don't want them to come back ever.

With us this evening is a warrior on the front lines of that battle, Border Patrol Agent Roberto Ortiz, great guy.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: In January, Roberto and another agent were patrolling by the Rio Grande near an area known as "Cartel Island," doesn't sound too nice to me, when heavily armed gunmen started shooting at them.

Roberto saw that his partner was totally exposed at great danger, and he leapt into action, returning fire and providing crucial seconds for his fellow agent to seek safety just -- and just barely.

I have some of the prints of that event, and it was not good.

Agent Ortiz, we salute you for your great courage and for your line of fire that you took and for the bravery that you showed.

We honor you, and we will always honor you.

Thank you, Roberto, very much.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

Roberto.

And I actually got to know him on my many calls to the border.

He's a great, great gentleman.

The territory to the immediate south of our border is now dominated entirely by criminal cartels that murder, rape, torture, and exercise total control.

They have total control over a whole nation, posing a grave threat to our national security.

The cartels are waging war on America, and it's time for America to wage war on the cartels, which we are doing.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Five nights ago, Mexican authorities, because of our tariff policies being imposed on them, think of this, handed over to us 29 of the biggest cartel leaders in their country.

That has never happened before.

They want to make us happy.

First time ever.

DONALD TRUMP: But we need Mexico and Canada to do much more than they've done.

And they have to stop the fentanyl and drugs pouring into the USA.

They're going to stop it.

I have sent Congress a detailed funding request laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history.

Larger even than current record holder President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate man, but someone who believed very strongly in borders.

Americans expect Congress to send me this funding without delay so I can sign it into law.

So, Mr. Speaker, John Thune, both of you, I hope you're going to be able to do that, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

Mr. Leader, thank you.

Thank you very much.

And let's get it to me.

I will sign it so fast.

You won't even believe it.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And as we reclaim our sovereignty, we must also bring back law and order to our cities and towns.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: In recent years, our justice system has been turned upside down by radical left lunatics.

Many jurisdictions virtually seized enforcing the law against dangerous repeat offenders while weaponizing law enforcement against political opponents like me.

My administration has acted swiftly and decisively to restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law, starting at the FBI and the DOJ.

Pam, good luck.

Kash, wherever you may be.

Good luck.

Good luck.

Pam Bondi.

Good luck.

So important.

You're going to do a great job.

Kash, thank you.

Thank you, Kash.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: They've already started very strong.

They're going to do a fantastic job.

You're going to be very proud of them.

We're also once again giving our police officers the support, protection, and respect they so dearly deserve.

They have to get it.

They have such a hard, dangerous job, but we're going to make it less dangerous.

The problem is the bad guys don't respect the law, but they're starting to respect it, and they soon will respect it.

This also includes our great fire departments throughout the country.

Our firemen and women are unbelievable people, and I will never forget them.

And besides that, they voted for me in record numbers, so I have no choice.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: One year ago this month, 31-year-old New York police officer Jonathan Diller, unbelievably wonderful person and a great officer, was gunned down at a traffic stop on Long Island.

I went to his funeral.

The vicious criminal charged with his murder had 21 prior arrests, and they were rough arrests.

So he was a real bad one.

The thug in the seat next to him had 14 prior arrests and went by the name of Killer.

He was Killer.

He killed other people, they say, a lot of them.

I attended Officer Diller's service, and when I met his wife and one-year-old son, Ryan, it was very inspirational, actually.

His widow's name is Stephanie, and she is here tonight.

Stephanie, thank you very much, Stephanie.

Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Stephanie, we're going to make sure that Ryan knows his dad was a true hero.

New York's finest.

And we're going to get these cold-blooded killers and repeat offenders off our streets.

And we're going to do it fast.

Got to stop it.

They get out with 28 arrests, they push people into subway trains.

They hit people over the head, back of the head with baseball bats.

We got to get them out of here.

I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer.

And tonight, I'm asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: I'm also asking for a new crime bill getting tough on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America's police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed.

They don't want to be killed.

We're not going to let them be killed.

(CROSSTALK) DONALD TRUMP: Joining us in the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police.

His name is D.J.

Daniel.

He is 13 years old and he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) MAN: Thank you, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: But in 2018, D.J.

was diagnosed with brain cancer.

The doctors gave him five months at most to live.

That was more than six years ago.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: Since that time, D.J.

and his dad have been on a quest to make his dream come true, and D.J.

has been sworn in as an honorary law enforcement officer.

Actually, a number of times.

The police love him, the police departments love him.

And tonight, D.J., we're going to do you the biggest honor of them all.

I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) (CHANTING) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, D.J.

D.J.

's doctors believe his cancer likely came from a chemical he was exposed to when he was younger.

Since 1975, rates of child cancer have increased by more than 40 percent.

Reversing this trend is one of the top priorities for our new Presidential Commission to Make America Healthy Again, chaired by our new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: With the name Kennedy, you would have thought everybody over here would have been cheering.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: How quickly they forget.

Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong.

(CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: As an example, not long ago -- and you can't even believe these numbers - - one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000.

And now it's one in 36.

There's something wrong.

One in 36, think of that.

So we're going to find out what it is, and there's nobody better than Bobby and all of the people that are working with you.

You have the best to figure out what is going on.

(SHOUTING) DONALD TRUMP: OK, Bobby, good luck.

It's a very important job.

Thank you.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

My administration is also working to protect our children from toxic ideologies in our schools.

A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter's school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl.

Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns, they/them pronoun, actually, all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.

January, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

Stories like this are why, shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And now I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.

This is a big lie.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And our message is to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Because we're getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military and it's already out, and it's out of our society.

We don't want it.

Wokeness is trouble.

Wokeness is bad.

It's gone.

It's gone.

And we feel so much better for it, don't we?

Don't we feel better?

DONALD TRUMP: Our service members won't be activists and ideologues.

They will be fighters and warriors.

They will fight for our country.

And, Pete, congratulations.

Secretary of Defense, congratulations.

DONALD TRUMP: And he's not big into the woke movement, I can tell you.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: I know him well.

I am pleased to report that, in January, the U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services.

DONALD TRUMP: What a difference.

DONALD TRUMP: And, you know, it was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite.

We couldn't recruit anywhere.

We couldn't recruit.

Now we're having the best results just about that we have ever had.

What a tremendous turnaround.

It's really a beautiful thing to see.

People love our country again.

It's very simple.

They love our country, and they love being in our military again.

So it's a great thing.

And thank you very much.

Great job.

Thank you.

DONALD TRUMP: We're joined tonight by a young man, Jason Hartley, who knows the weight of that call of duty.

Jason's father, grandfather and great grandfather all wore the uniform.

Jason tragically lost his dad, who was also a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy when he was just a boy.

And now he wants to carry on the family legacy of service.

Jason is a senior in high school, a six letter varsity athlete, a really good athlete, they say, a brilliant student with a 4.46 -- that's good -- GPA.

DONALD TRUMP: And his greatest dream is to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

DONALD TRUMP: And, Jason, that's a very big deal getting in.

That's a hard one to get into, but I'm pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted.

DONALD TRUMP: You will soon be joining the corps of cadets.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

Jason, you're going to be on the long gray line, Jason.

As commander-in-chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future.

As a first step, I'm asking Congress to fund a state of the art Golden Dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA.

DONALD TRUMP: And Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago, but the technology just wasn't there.

Not even close.

But now, we have the technology.

It's incredible actually.

And other places have -- they have it.

Israel has it, other places have it.

And the United States should have it, too, right?

Tim, right?

They should have it, too.

So I want to thank you, but it's a very, very important.

This is a very dangerous world.

We should have it.

We want to be protected and we're going to protect our citizens like never before.

To boost our defense industrial base, we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new Office of Shipbuilding in the White House and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America, where it belongs.

We used to make so many ships.

We don't make...em anymore very much, but we're going to make them very fast very soon.

It will have a huge impact.

To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we've already started doing it.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals.

The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others.

But others could use it.

But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure.

Thirty-eight thousand workers died building the Panama Canal.

They died of malaria.

They died of snake bites and mosquitoes.

Not a nice place to work.

They paid them very highly to go there, knowing there was a 25 percent chance that they would die.

The most expensive project also that was ever built in our country's history, if you bring it up to modern day costs.

It was given away by the Carter administration for $1.

But that agreement has been violated very severely.

We didn't give it to China.

We gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And we have Marco Rubio in charge.

Good luck, Marco.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: Now, we know who to blame if anything goes wrong.

Marco has been amazing and he's going to do a great job.

Think of it.

He got a hundred votes.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: You know, he was approved with actually 99, but the 100th was this gentleman, and I feel very certain, so let's assume he got 100 votes.

And I'm either very, very happy about that or I'm very concerned about it.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: But he's already proven.

I mean, he's a great gentleman, he's respected by everybody, and we appreciate you voting for Marco.

He's going to do a fantastic job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: He's doing a great job.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Great job.

And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland.

We strongly support your right to determine your own future.

And if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.

We need Greenland for national security and even international security.

And we're working with everybody involved to try and get it, but we need it really for international world security And I think we're going to get it.

One way or the other we're going to get it.

(LAUGHTER) DONALD TRUMP: We will keep you safe.

We will make you rich.

And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.

It's a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security.

America is once again standing strong against the forces of radical Islamic terrorism.

Three and a half years ago, ISIS terrorists killed 13 American service members and countless others in the Abbey Gate bombing during the disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Not that they were withdrawing.

It was the way they withdrew.

Perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.

Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.

And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice.

(CHEERING) (APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And I want to thank especially the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster.

This was a very momentous day for those 13 families, who I actually got to know very well, most of them, whose children were murdered and the many people that were so badly -- over 42 people, so badly injured on that fateful day in Afghanistan.

What a horrible day.

Such incompetence was shown that when Putin saw what happened, I guess he said, wow, maybe this is my chance.

That's how bad it was.

Should have never happened.

Grossly incompetent people.

I spoke to many of the parents and loved ones and they're all in our hearts tonight.

Just spoke to him on the phone.

We had a big call.

Every one of them called and everybody was on the line and they did nothing but cry with happiness.

They were very happy, as happy as you can be under those circumstances.

Their child, brother, sister, son, daughter was killed for no reason whatsoever.

In the Middle East, we're bringing back our hostages from Gaza.

In my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations, the Abraham Accords.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: And now, we're going to build on that foundation to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region.

A lot of things are happening in the Middle East.

People haven't been talking about that so much lately with everything going on with Ukraine and Russia.

But a lot of things are happening in the Middle East.

It's a rough neighborhood, actually.

I'm also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine.

Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict, with no end in sight.

The United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine's defense, with no security, with no (inaudible).

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Do you want to keep it going for another five years?

Yeah, yeah, you would say, Pocahontas says yes.

(LAUGHTER) (BOOING) DONALD TRUMP: Two thousand people are being killed every single week.

More than that.

They're Russian young people, they're Ukrainian young people.

They're not Americans.

But I want it to stop.

Meanwhile, Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far.

Think of that.

They've spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending.

And we've spent perhaps $350 billion, like taking candy from a baby.

That's what happened.

And they've spent $100 billion.

What a difference that is.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: That's a lie!

DONALD TRUMP: And we have an ocean separating us and they don't.

But we're getting along very well with them.

And lots of good things are happening.

Biden has authorized more money in this fight than Europe has spent by billions and billions of dollars.

It's hard to believe that they wouldn't have stopped it and said at some point, come on, let's equalize.

You've got to be equal to us.

But that didn't happen.

Earlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine.

The letter reads, "Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer.

Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians," he said."

My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump's strong leadership to get a peace that lasts.

We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence.

Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you."

I appreciate that he sent this letter, just got it a little while ago.

Simultaneously, we've had serious discussions with Russia and received strong signals that they are ready for peace.

Wouldn't that be beautiful?

Wouldn't that be beautiful?

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Wouldn't that be beautiful?

It's time to stop this madness.

It's time to halt the killing.

It's time to end this senseless war.

If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.

Nearly four years ago, amid rising tensions, a history teacher named Marc Fogel was detained in Russia and sentenced to 14 years in a penal colony.

Rough stuff.

The previous administration barely lifted a finger to help him.

They knew he was innocent, but they had no idea where to begin.

But last summer I promised his 95-year-old mother, Malphine, that we would bring her boy safely back home.

After 22 days in office, I did just that.

And they are here tonight.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: To Marc and his great mom, we are delighted to have you safe and sound and with us.

As fate would have it, Marc Fogel was born in a small rural town in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Have you heard of it?

Where his mother has lived for the past 78 years.

I just happened to go there last July 13th for a rally.

That was not pleasant.

And that is where I met his beautiful mom right before I walked onto that stage.

And I told her I would not forget what she said about her son.

And I never did, did I?

Never forgot.

Less than 10 minutes later, at that same rally, a gunfire rang out and a sick and deranged assassin unloaded eight bullets from his sniper's perch into a crowd of many thousands of people.

My life was saved by a fraction of an inch, but some were not so lucky.

Corey Comperatore was a firefighter, a veteran, a Christian, a husband, a devoted father, and above all, a protector.

When the sound of gunshots pierced the air, it was a horrible sound.

Corey knew instantly what it was and what to do.

He threw himself on top of his wife and daughters and shielded them from the bullets with his own body.

Corey was hit really hard.

You know the story from there.

He sacrificed his life to save theirs.

Two others, very fine people, were also seriously hit.

But thankfully, with the help of two great country doctors, we thought they were gone and they were saved.

So those doctors had great talent.

We're joined by Corey's wife, Helen, who was his high school sweetheart, and their two beloved daughters, Allyson and Kaylee.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: To Helen, Allyson and Kaylee, Corey is looking down on his three beautiful ladies right now, and he is cheering you on.

He loves you.

He is cheering you on.

Corey was taken from us much too soon, but his destiny was to leave us all with a shining example of the selfless devotion of a true American patriot.

It was love like Corey's that built our country, and it's love like Corey's that is going to make our country more majestic than ever before.

I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason.

I was saved by God to make America great again.

I believe that.

(APPLAUSE) DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

From the patriots of Lexington and Concord to the heroes of Gettysburg and Normandy, from the warriors who crossed the Delaware to the trailblazers who climbed the Rockies, and from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk to the astronauts who touched the moon, Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices, and did whatever it took to defend our children, our country, and our freedom.

And as we have seen in this chamber tonight, that same strength, faith, love, and spirit is still alive and thriving in the hearts of the American people.

Despite the best efforts of those who would try to censor us, silence us, break us, destroy us, Americans are today a proud, free, sovereign, and independent nation that will always be free, and we will fight for it 'til death.

We will never let anything happen to our beloved country.

Because we are a country of doers, dreamers, fighters and survivors.

Our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness, and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier.

They chased our destiny across a boundless continent.

They built the railroads, laid the highways, and graced the world with American marvels like the Empire State Building, the mighty Hoover Dam, and the towering Golden Gate Bridge.

They lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of American industry, vanquished the communists, fascists and Marxists all over the world, and gave us countless modern wonders sculpted out of iron, glass and steel.

We stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who won and built the Modern Age.

These workers, who poured their sweat into the skylines of our cities, these warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle and gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom.

Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty, and it is our turn to take America's destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country.

This will be our greatest era.

With God's help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this earth.

We are going to create the highest quality of life, build the safest and wealthiest and healthiest and most vital communities anywhere in the world.

We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) DONALD TRUMP: And through it all, we are going to rediscover the unstoppable power of the American spirit.

And we are going to renew unlimited promise of the American dream.

Every single day.

We will stand up and we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in and for the country our people deserve.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) (CHANTING) DONALD TRUMP: My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future because the golden age of America has only just begun.

It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before.

Thank you.

God bless you and God bless America.

(APPLAUSE) (CHEERING) GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump touting what he called the swift and unrelenting action taken by his administration these last six weeks, saying his administration is just getting started.

Let's go to our Lisa Desjardins, who is in the chamber.

Lisa, and, for our viewers, we should say you have this vantage point just atop the Rostrum there.

You were able to see things that we couldn't during the speech, especially the moments of Democratic protest.

We saw Congressman -- Texas Congressman Al Green at the beginning of the speech heckle the president.

He was removed by the House sergeant at arms.

Give us a sense of what you saw and your reactions, based on the speech and the conversations you have been having with lawmakers throughout the day.

LISA DESJARDINS: Well, what we witnessed here was an unprecedented speech for a number of reasons.

One, by my count, that was the longest presidential address to Congress we have seen since 1964 at least.

But the moment where Al Green stood and interrupted and refused to leave is something that none of us have ever seen in this chamber.

I may have to go back to Civil War time to see something like that.

He was removed from the chamber.

He was not the only Democrat that was removed from the chamber.

Two others were removed later, I have confirmed.

And then we saw rolling protests with signs.

Some of those signs, as you probably saw on TV, had to do with Elon Musk, saying "Musk Steals," others having to do with Medicaid or protecting veterans.

Others had signs they were handwriting themselves.

One, Rashida Tlaib, the congresswoman, had a sign that she was writing throughout, AT one point, on the immigration section, for example, saying, "What about the immigrants who worked for you?"

So, Democrats tried not to boo.

There was booing.

Their plan was to not boo, but that did happen.

But, instead, they were trying to register their protest mostly through signs.

But I think they will be remembered for Al Green standing up.

On the other end, I want to say I was watching Kash Patel, who's sitting very close to me, the new FBI director, known for his ardent support of Donald Trump.

He barely clapped during the entire speech.

He gave the impression of sort of someone trying to be outside of the partisanship that you felt in this chamber.

Republicans, as you could see, elated with this speech.

It was the longest speech, as I said, one of the longest in history.

But, usually, you see them nodding off, losing track.

And I did not see that tonight.

Everyone was paying on the Republican side very close attention.

You won't be surprised that Democrats left as soon -- the moment it was over.

There was a mass Democratic exit from the chamber.

AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump continues to make his way out of the chamber there, greeting a number of Republican lawmakers as he leaves.

If you stay with us, we should note too we will be bringing you the Democrats' response in just a few moments as well.

I believe our Laura Barron-Lopez, our White House correspondent, is also still with us.

She is also on Capitol Hill tonight.

Laura, as you listened along to the president's remarks there, a number of points we have heard several times, certainly core, central parts of his campaigns over the years as well on issues of immigration, some of the anti-transgender messaging as well, also notes about the -- Russia's war in Ukraine and some economic plans moving forward.

What stood out to you as someone who covers this White House around the clock?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: Well, as you noted, Amna, a sizable part of the speech was devoted to the president talking about his immigration plans, notably what he says he wants to launch the largest deportation plans that the country has ever seen.

We should note, though, that, currently, the pace of deportation flights right now for this administration are very similar to the number of deportation under the prior administration.

One of the other things that stood out, Amna, was also how much the president talked about Elon Musk and DOGE.

That's the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

And he claimed that DOGE has -- quote -- "found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud."

The DOGE and Elon Musk have not provided any evidence of fraud to date.

And, in fact, their wall of receipts online actually has a number of math errors.

And, just recently, they erased some $400 billion in savings that they said that they had found.

And the president also repeated false claims about FEMA, he said, illegally sending money to House migrants in New York City in hotels.

That's not true.

This is -- that money was allocated and voted on by Congress.

And as many of these things that DOGE is cutting and slashing, this is money that was voted on by Congress, sometimes in bipartisan ways.

And so the president and Elon Musk have repeatedly claimed that the things that they are cutting is fraud, but have provided no evidence.

And they are clawing back this money, which some constitutional scholars have raised could very well be in violation of the Impoundment Control Act, Amna.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, Laura, we also heard the president in his speech decry fraud in the Social Security payment system, suggesting that there's somebody who's 300 years old who is on the dole there.

That's been debunked.

Remind us of what the truth is there.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ: That's right, Geoff.

So, when it comes to Social Security, the president claiming that there are millions of people who are dead that are getting payments is just not true.

Is there error across Social Security?

Yes, there is.

According to the inspector general in a recent report out last year, there's about less than 1 percent of improper payments made by the Social Security Administration.

And a lot of those payments are overpayments to people who are alive, so not to millions of dead individuals who are still taking Social Security payments.

AMNA NAWAZ: Laura Barron-Lopez on Capitol Hill for us tonight.

Back here at the table, let's get some takeaways from our panel, who, of course, are still with us.

Tiffany Smiley, kick us off here, a number of messages you heard there delivered by the president.

And I will say it's probably bipartisan support for one of his earliest sentences when he said, the first few weeks of my presidency have seen swift and unrelenting action.

No one would disagree with that.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: How successful that action has been, I think there's debate over that, but what did you take away from the president's remarks?

TIFFANY SMILEY: You know, I had the pleasure of being in attendance in 2017 for his very first joint address.

And I have to say this felt different.

He has an energy and a vigor and a fight about him, that he's moving forward swiftly and quickly.

It's almost as if he -- like I said when I opened the show, he learned in the first four years, because he ran into roadblocks consistently in trying to get his agenda across.

And now he's just blowing through the roadblocks.

He's found a way to deliver for the American people very quickly, very fast.

He addressed his wins.

He came -- he talked briefly about DOGE, not a whole lot, but he also came with receipts in listing out where the waste, the fraud and the abuses.

I think the line that really stood out to me, and it was at the beginning, and it set the tone for the whole speech, was when he was saying the media -- and I'm paraphrasing here, but the media and Democrats kept saying, we need more legislation to secure the border, we need more legislation to secure the border.

And he simply said, all you needed was a new president.

And that is strong.

And he -- he laid out the future, what we can expect.

He touched on tariffs.

He admitted that there's going to be some pain points.

I think he understands that you can't get America back if you don't put pressure on manufacturing, if you don't put pressure on Mexico and Canada to help us secure our border and stop the flow of fentanyl that's coming in and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.

So I thought it was bold.

I thought it was strong, courageous.

He also addressed commonsense policies that are back for the American people.

So it was moving.

GEOFF BENNETT: We're set to hear in a few minutes from the newly elected Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin, who's going to provide the Democratic response.

It was interesting though, Amy, how President Trump used those moments, those early moments of Democratic protest, against Democrats to suggest that they were somehow obstructionist and that they were somehow against the many things that he views as popular, like immigration.

AMY WALTER: Well, like immigration, which it is his moves on immigration have been, I don't know if the word embrace is correct, but they're more -- seen more positively than many of the things that he's doing.

Cutting government waste is popular.

Many of the things that he talked about with DEI or banning transgendered athletes also popular.

But the thing that I just keep coming back to is what we talked about at the very beginning.

David and I both made this comment about wanting to hear more about the economy and how this is actually going to work.

For all of the tumult that these tariffs have caused initially, and we don't know what the -- how long they're going to last or what it's going to look like -- precious little time was spent on how this is actually going to work.

Tiffany's right, he said something about there will be a little disturbance.

It won't be much.

They're about protecting -- tariffs are about protecting the soul of our country.

But given the amount of time and energy he spent on outlining many other of his priorities, it sure seems like this could have gotten a lot more.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have got less than two minutes to go before we hear from Senator Slotkin there.

So, David, let's give -- give us your quick takeaways.

DAVID BROOKS: One minute.

AMNA NAWAZ: If we can't hear from you now, we will come back on the back end.

Go ahead.

DAVID BROOKS: First, just politically and then subsequently politically, I thought there's a reason he's dominating American politics right now.

It was a good speech from a political point of view.

Lots of good moments.

If you're a normal person, you read all the stuff he's doing, you think, oh, that sounds good to me.

And so, politically, I thought very good.

Democrats, I think, looked bad.

They looked bad sitting there.

They looked worse when they protested.

So, yes, not great.

Then quickly, on substance, then we will get to Jonathan, he talk about Social Security lies.

Like, South Korea allegedly has huge tariffs.

We struck a trade deal with South Korea in 2008.

And we have -- they have no tariffs on our manufactured goods and teeny, tiny tariffs on a lot of other stuff.

So, a lot of what he says is just not true.

And that could turn out to hurt him, because if you have a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about, presumably, there's some negative consequences there.

AMNA NAWAZ: Jonathan.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Disagree that Democrats looked bad.

I actually think Democrats looked better than I thought they would.

I thought they were smart to sit there and show their displeasure with what the president was saying.

Congressman Green being ejected from the chamber, the man was acting on his convictions.

Politically, sure, fine, the president's reflecting the people who voted for him.

But honestly, it was a -- I thought it was dull, boring and a festival of meanness, as I expected.

AMNA NAWAZ: We're going to have a lot more to talk about on the back end.

For now, we're going to take you live to the Democratic response.

That's from first-term Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin.

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): Hi, everyone.

I'm Elissa Slotkin.

I'm honored to have the opportunity to speak tonight.

It's late, so I promise to be a lot shorter than what you just watched.

I won't take it personally if you've never heard of me.

I'm the new senator from the great State of Michigan where I grew up.

I have been in public service my entire life because I happened to be in New York City on 9/11 when the Twin Towers came down.

Before the smoke cleared, I knew I wanted to make a life in national security.

I was recruited by the CIA and did three tours in Iraq alongside the military.

In between, I worked at the White House under President Bush and President Obama.

Two very different leaders who both believed that America is exceptional.

You can find that same sense of patriotism here in Wyandotte, Michigan, where I'm speaking from tonight.

It's a working-class town just south of Detroit.

President Trump and I both won here in November.

It might not seem like it, but plenty of places like this still exist across the United States.

Places where people believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you should do well and your kids should do better.

It reminds me of how I grew up.

My dad was a lifelong Republican, my mom a lifelong Democrat.

But it was never a big deal, because we had shared values that were bigger than any one party.

We just went through another fraught election season.

Americans made it clear that prices are too high and that the government needs to be more responsive to their needs.

America wants change.

But there's a responsible way to make change and a reckless way.

And we can make that change without forgetting who we are as a country and as a democracy.

So, that's what I'm going to lay out tonight.

Because whether you're from Wyandotte or Wichita, most Americans share three core beliefs.

That the middle class is the engine of our country.

That strong national security protects us from harm.

And that our democracy, no matter how messy, is unparalleled and worth fighting for.

Let's start with the economy.

Michigan literally invented the middle class, the revolutionary idea that you could work at an auto plant and afford the car you were building.

That's the American dream.

And in order to expand and protect the middle class, we have to do a few basic things.

We need to bring down the price of things we spend the most money on, groceries, housing, health care.

We need to make more things in America with good paying union jobs and bring our supply chains back home from places like China.

We need to give American businesses the certainty they need to invest and create the jobs of the future.

And we need a tax system that's fair for people who don't happen to make a billion dollars.

Look, the president talked a big game on the economy, but it's always important to read the fine print.

So, do his plans actually help Americans get ahead?

Not even close.

President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends.

He's on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America.

And to do that, he's going to make you pay in every part of your life.

Grocery and home prices are going up, not down, and he hasn't laid out a credible plan to deal with either of those.

His tariffs on allies like Canada will raise prices on energy, lumber, and cars, and start a trade war that will hurt manufacturing and farmers.

Your premiums and prescriptions will cost more because the math on his proposals doesn't work without going after your health care.

Meanwhile, for those keeping score, the national debt is going up, not down.

And if he's not careful, he could walk us right into a recession.

And one more thing, in order to pay for his plan, he could very well come after your retirement.

The Social Security, Medicare, and VA benefits you worked your whole life to earn.

the president claims he won't, but Elon Musk just called Social Security the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time.

While we're on the subject of Elon Musk, is there anyone in America who is comfortable with him and his gang of 20-year-olds using their own computer servers to poke through your tax returns, your health information, and your bank accounts?

No oversight, no protections against cyber-attack, no guardrails on what they do with your private data.

We need a more efficient government.

You want to cut waste?

I will help you do it.

But change doesn't need to be chaotic or make us less safe.

The mindless firing of people who work to protect our nuclear weapons, keep our planes from crashing, and conduct the research that finds the cure for cancer only to rehire them two days later.

No CEO in America could do that without being summarily fired.

OK.

So we've talked about economic security.

How about national security?

Let's start with the border.

As someone who has spent my whole career protecting our homeland, every country deserves to know who and what is coming across its border, period.

Democrats and Republicans should all be for that.

But securing the border without actually fixing our broken immigration system is dealing with the symptom and not the disease.

America is a nation of immigrants.

We need a functional system keyed to the needs of our economy that allows vetted people to come and work here legally.

So I look forward to the president's plan on that.

Because here's the thing, today's world is deeply interconnected.

Migration, cyber threats, A. I., environmental destruction, terrorism, one nation cannot face these issues alone.

We need friends in all corners and our safety depends on it.

President Trump loves to say peace through strength.

That's actually a line he stole from Ronald Reagan.

But let me tell you, after the spectacle that just took place in the Oval Office last week, Reagan must be rolling in his grave.

We all want an end to the war in Ukraine.

But Reagan understood that true strength required America to combine our military and economic might with moral clarity.

And that scene in the Oval Office wasn't just a bad episode of reality TV.

It summed up Trump's whole approach to the world.

He believes in cozying up to dictators like Vladimir Putin and kicking our friends like the Canadians in the teeth.

He sees American leadership as merely a series of real estate transactions.

As a Cold War kid, I'm thankful it was Reagan and not Trump in office in the 1980s.

Trump would have lost us the Cold War.

Donald Trump's actions suggest that in his heart, he doesn't believe we're an exceptional nation.

He clearly doesn't think we should lead the world.

Look, America is not perfect, but I stand with the majority of Americans who believe we are still exceptional, unparalleled, and I would rather have American leadership over Chinese or Russian leadership any day of the week.

Because for generations, America has offered something better, our security and our prosperity, yes, but our democracy, our very system of government has been the aspiration of the world.

And right now it's at risk.

It's at risk when the president decides you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow, when he ignores court orders and the Constitution itself, or when elected leaders stand by and just let it happen.

But it's also at risk when the president pits Americans against each other, when he demonizes those who are different and tells certain people they shouldn't be included.

Because America is not just a patch of land between two oceans.

We are more than that.

Generations have fought and died to secure the fundamental rights that define us.

Those rights and the fight for them make us who we are.

We're a nation of strivers, risk-takers, innovators, and we are never satisfied.

That is America's superpower.

And look, I have lived and worked in many countries.

I have seen democracies flicker out.

I have seen what life is like when a government is rigged.

You can't open a business without paying off a corrupt official.

You can't criticize the guys in charge without getting a knock at the door in the middle of the night.

So as much as we need to make our government more responsive to our lives today, don't for one moment fool yourself that democracy isn't precious and worth saving.

But how do we actually do that?

I know a lot of you have been asking that question.

First, don't tune out.

It's easy to be exhausted, but America needs you now more than ever.

If previous generations had not fought for this democracy, where would we be today?

Second, hold your elected officials, including me, accountable.

Watch how they're voting.

Go to town halls and demand they take action.

That's as American as apple pie.

Third, organize.

Pick just one issue you're passionate about and engage.

And doomscrolling doesn't count.

Join a group that cares about your issue and act.

And if you can't find one, start one.

Some of the most important movements in our history have come from the bottom up.

In closing, we all know that our country is going through something right now.

We're not sure what the next day is going to hold, let alone the next decade.

But this isn't the first time we've experienced significant and tumultuous change as a country.

I'm a student of history, and we've gone through periods of political instability before, and ultimately we've chosen to keep changing this country for the better.

But every single time (23: 20: 00), we've only gotten through those moments because of two things: engaged citizens and principled leaders.

Engaged citizens who do a little bit more than they're used to doing, to fight for the things that they care about.

And principled leaders who are ready to receive the ball and do something about it.

So thank you tonight for caring about your country.

Just by watching you qualify as engaged citizens.

And I promise that I and my fellow Democrats will do everything in our power to be the principled leaders that you deserve.

Good night, everyone.

AMNA NAWAZ: That was the Democratic response to President Trump's speech delivered there by first-term Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin.

Jonathan, she's just one of four Democratic senators who won in a state that was carried by President Trump.

And that -- delivering that response is as fraught to position as you can find.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: It can quickly become the stuff of "Saturday Night Live" spoofs.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: How did she do?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I thought this is one of the best responses.

I think responses are terrible, whether Republicans do them or Democrats do them because they're always seemingly prewritten, prebaked, and they don't seem to jibe with what you just heard from the president of the United States in general.

But what Senator Slotkin did there, I thought, was really effective.

She acknowledged the problems, the reason why President Trump got elected, acknowledged what she needs to do as a senator, what Democrats need to do.

But, overall, I think between -- I think Presidents Trump -- President Trump's speech spoke to the people who voted for him, as Tiffany discussed.

Senator Slotkin's response spoke to the people who didn't vote for President Trump, spoke to Democrats who are hungry for someone to articulate the Democratic vision and version of what should be done.

And her rules of the road, don't doomscroll, get out and do something, pick one thing.

Democrats have been looking.

I get stopped all the time: What do I do?

What do I do?

She just laid out for people what they need to do.

And so I think, for there first time, I was - - honestly, I was bored by the president's -- by the president's joint address.

Senator Slotkin's address perked me up, maybe because I agree with 99 percent of what she said.

I get that.

But I do think, when you put those two speeches together, you have a clear view of the clear dividing line in this country right now.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, David, we also heard her make this point that she's all for change, but change doesn't need to be chaotic or make us feel less safe.

That's a direct quote.

That could be a line that Democrats settle on.

Do you see it that way?

DAVID BROOKS: Yes, I thought her messaging was outstanding for Democrats.

She did not sound like she was coming out of some progressive activist group in D.C. or some faculty lounge.

She sounded like somebody from Michigan who worked in national security.

And the line, we can have change, but it should be responsible and not reckless, that's a good nonideological line for them to take.

She -- and she hit the main issues, like economy and national security.

So I agree.

I thought it was -- like, it was the first sign that the Democrats are coming to a message that could appeal to somebody who voted for Donald Trump.

AMY WALTER: Except that was kind of their message in -- it was their message in 2018, which was successful, but it was also their message in 2024 was, he's too chaotic, he's too dangerous, this is too risky, and voters were like, yes, I'm going to take that risk.

JONATHAN CAPEHART: But there's evidence now.

AMY WALTER: Well, that's the question.

TIFFANY SMILEY: We're only 43 days in.

Wait until Donald Trump starts to deliver results.

AMY WALTER: That's going to be the question, is, in a year, is this message, change doesn't need to be chaotic, is that going to hold?

Or is -- are we going to be -- I kind of have a feeling we're probably going to end up where we have been for the last eight years, Jonathan, to your point, which is, 48 percent are going to say this is crazy and chaotic, and that the other 48 are going to be like, this is great, and we will stay in those two camps.

(LAUGHTER) AMNA NAWAZ: Tiffany, to that point, I mean, Elissa Slotkin was laser-focused on speaking to middle-class Americans there.

TIFFANY SMILEY: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: Was that maybe a missed opportunity for President Trump, who spoke just for a few minutes about the economy and specifics there?

TIFFANY SMILEY: Yes, but President Trump laid out also his plan for winning and what he has already accomplished for the American people, from securing our border.

I know we keep saying that, but it's monumental what he has done in 43 days, brought back hostages, signed the executive order to keep men out of women's sports.

I mean, these are -- these are -- that's huge.

AMNA NAWAZ: The economy was the number one issue, right?

TIFFANY SMILEY: The economy was the number one issue.

And I think we just have to give him more time.

He's clearly working on it.

He started working on it on day one.

We will start to see the economy come back.

Senator Slotkin had a wonderful response.

I thought she did very well.

I think the Democrats need to be careful, because she started to get into it, where they start to fearmonger and they start to go down the Donald Trump line of he's scary.

And they should be careful, because, when he starts delivering results, like we were saying, this could turn completely around.

I think Democrats would be smart to find ways to partner with President Trump on something, whether it's DOGE.

I mean, last week, a Harvard/Harris poll, six out of seven believe in DOGE.

They like it.

Seven out of 10 believe that there's waste, fraud and abuse in our government.

So perhaps they should find ways to work with President Trump and it might help the party out.

GEOFF BENNETT: What about that, Jonathan?

Are there areas of commonality where Democrats could work with Republicans, assuming the Trump administration wants to work with Democrats?

JONATHAN CAPEHART: I'm sorry.

I'm just sort of blown away by the notion that Democrats bordering on the line of fearmongering, when we just listen to an hour or 45 minutes of fearmongering from the president of the United States.

I don't know if there are areas where Democrats can work with the president, but where he is right now, the answer is no.

AMNA NAWAZ: Forty-four days into this presidency, I think we can say a lot to see ahead.

That, meanwhile, concludes our broadcast coverage of President Trump's address to Congress and the Democrats' response.

Our deepest thanks to the entire panel at the table.

And you can join us tomorrow morning at 11:00 Eastern, when our digital anchor, Deema Zein, will host Lisa Desjardins and Laura Barron-Lopez for more takeaways and to answer your questions.

You can find that on our YouTube page and on our social platforms.

For now, I'm Amna Nawaz.

GEOFF BENNETT: And I'm Geoff Bennett.

We will also have a full wrap of all the day's news on tomorrow's "PBS News Hour."

We hope you will join us for that.

Thanks for spending part of your evening, still the evening, not the morning, just yet... (LAUGHTER) GEOFF BENNETT: ... with us.

We appreciate it.

We will see you back here tomorrow.

END