In the official Democratic response to Trump's speech, Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan accused him of trying to mount an "unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends" and told viewers that "to do that, he’s going to make you pay in every part of your life.”

Slotkin, who is in her first term, also blasted Trump's ally Elon Musk, invoking Musk's comments to podcaster Joe Rogan last week when he 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?” Slotkin added, referring to the young people working at the Department of Government Efficiency who have sought sensitive data housed in the Treasury Department and other federal agencies.

After a rocky start when Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was removed for jeering at Trump, this really became a speech about cultural issues — a culture war speech, if you will.

Trump spent about 20 minutes on that.

It was 20 minutes before he talked about the top issue for voters: the economy.

Trump praised Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he spoke about autism in the United States, saying there’s “nobody better” than Kennedy, his recently confirmed health and human services secretary, to “figure out what’s going on.” 

“You have the best to figure out what is going on. OK, Bobby, good luck. It’s a very important job,” Trump said.

Kennedy has long used anti-vaccine rhetoric and his platform to claim without evidence that early childhood vaccines cause autism. In 2018, Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit anti-vaccine group.

Pressed about the issue by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., at his Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy refused to plainly state that vaccines do not cause autism, despite decades of research dispelling any link.

Trump told farmers that there "may be a little bit of an adjustment period" as he reaffirmed his plans to place sweeping tariffs on goods coming into the United States from around the world — a move that has already caused China and Canada to announce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agriculture products.

Referring to tumbling sales of U.S. agriculture products to China during his first term, Trump said farmers "will probably have to bear with me again."

Trump said that ultimately farmers would benefit because he will be placing tariffs on agriculture products coming into the United States from other countries. The United States began imposing a 25% tariff today on all products coming into the country from Mexico, which is one of its largest suppliers of tomatoes, avocados, peppers and berries.

"Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it's happening, and it will happen rather quickly," he said. "There'll be a little disturbance, but we're OK with that. It won't be much."

During a section of his speech outlining why he wants the United States to regain control of the Panama Canal, Trump said, "We have [Secretary of State] Marco Rubio in charge."

"Good luck, Marco," Trump added, before joking, "Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong."

He also complimented Rubio, saying, "Marco has been amazing, and he’s going to do a great job."

Before tonight's speech, the longest address to Congress or State of the Union a president had given to Congress since 1964 was by President Bill Clinton, who gave a speech that lasted an hour and 28 minutes in 2000.

The speech clocked in at around an hour and 40 minutes.

Discussing the war in Ukraine, Trump taunted Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., by referring to her as "Pocahontas." Numerous Democrats walked out after that.

Promising to "drain the swamp," President Trump says his administration will remove any officials who resist changes and restore what he calls "true democracy" in America. He touted cuts to the federal government through DOGE, which is moving to rapidly cut government jobs.

NBC News checked in with swing voters from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, to get their reactions to the joint address about an hour into Trump's speech.

Trump won Bucks County by 0.07% in November.

Lynne Keheller, who described herself as a reluctant Republican, voted for Trump in 2016, a libertarian candidate in 2020 and unwillingly voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

She said it was “hard to watch” the joint address and turned it off.

“He’s so divisive ... it overshadows some of the good stuff he’s doing,” she told NBC News.

STATEMENT: "For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction," Trump said.

VERDICT: This is false.

ANALYSIS: Trump appears to be cherry-picking one single poll result here, and ignoring a few strong numbers from early in President Joe Biden's term. While he doesn’t cite his source, it seems likely he’s pointing to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll showing that 47% saying America’s on the “right track.”

Rasmussen is a right-wing poll that regularly partners with conservative authors and outlets to sponsor its polling. And it’s controversial — the polling aggregation site FiveThirtyEight removed the poll from its averages last year over concerns about its partisanship and its methodology.

It is true that many polls have shown a bump in the classic “right track, wrong track” question since Trump took office. For example, NPR/Marist/PBS’ newest poll found 45% saying the country is moving in the right direction, up from 35% in December, and from even lower during earlier portions of the Biden administration.

Trump taunted Democrats for opposing his tax cut plans, which could cost anywhere from $5 trillion to $11 trillion over 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.

“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," he said.

Of course, Democrats know what happened after they opposed Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, many of which are set to expire next year because they were funded through debt. There was no political penalty for opposing Trump’s cuts that Democrats portrayed as favoring those with extreme wealth.

In the 2018 midterms, Democrats picked up a majority by gaining 40 seats, their strongest gain since the 1974 elections.

“Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it’s our turn to start using them against those other countries," he said.

Trump promised that come April 2, reciprocal tariffs will be imposed for most of the country’s trading partners.

“That’s reciprocal, back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax that,” he said.

Trump has made similar threats for weeks but said he didn’t want to make the announcement on April 1 because of April Fool’s Day.

Rep. Lance Gooden, R-Texas, said on social media why he grabbed the "this is not normal" sign Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., was holding.

“No one will disrespect President @realdonaldtrump in front of me,” Gooden said on X.

Trump talked about the development of a gold card, which would allow foreigners to buy a pathway to U.S. citizenship for $5 million. He went on to compare it to a green card, saying the gold card is “more sophisticated.”

Trump said: “Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119.”

The databases may list those people, but that does not mean they are getting paid benefits, as Trump implied.
Social Security’s acting administrator, Lee Dudek, said last month: “The reported data are people in our records with a Social Security number who do not have a date of death associated with their record. These individuals are not necessarily receiving benefits.”

Part of the confusion comes from Social Security’s software system, which is based on the COBOL programming language and has a lack of date type. This means that some entries with missing or incomplete birthdates will default to a reference point of more than 150 years ago.

Trump touted the TAKE IT DOWN Act, which first lady Melania Trump advocated for this week. The bill, which passed unanimously in the Senate, seeks to criminalize revenge porn.

After he discussed the bill, Trump quipped: “I'm going to use that bill for myself, if you don’t mind. Because nobody gets treated worse than I do online."

When Trump said one of the social security recipients was over 300 years old, a GOP rep yelled “Joe Biden!”

Worth noting Trump and Biden are four years apart in age, with Biden now at 82 years old and Trump aged 78.

Trump is promising tax cuts “all across the board,” and reviving his campaign promise to offer “no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social and security benefits for our great seniors.” While Trump has drilled a rapid pace of action since taking office, these proposals affecting hourly workers and seniors are still outstanding.

As Trump claims to have found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud,” even the highly dubious accounting of the DOGE “wall of receipts” shows only $105 billion in estimated total savings. The numbers don’t add up. Neither has anyone been charged with fraud or any such case been publicly opened or referred.

After he was escorted out of the chamber, Rep. Al Green of Texas told NBC News that when Trump spoke about his “mandate” it “triggered something” in him.

“When he said he had a mandate, it triggered something. It really did. Because he doesn’t have a mandate, and he doesn’t have a mandate to cut health care from poor people,” Green said. 

Just over 20 minutes in his speech, Trump mentioned tech mogul Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, telling lawmakers, "I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency: DOGE. Perhaps you've heard of it."

The president pointed out that Musk was in the chamber and said of the tech mogul, "He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this."

The president also said that DOGE is "headed" by Musk, even as the administration has denied that he's in charge. The White House said last month that an official named Amy Gleason is DOGE's administrator.

Trump quipped about Musk's work that, "We appreciate it. Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it, I believe" referring to Democrats.

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

Verdict: This appears to be true, but questions remain about the specifics.

Analysis: It is unclear whether Trump is speaking about border crossings, encounters and/or apprehensions.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data from 2000-2019 that compares apprehensions across the various sectors by month, the lowest month on record was 11,677 in April of 2017.

In January of 2025, CPB says “From Jan. 21 through Jan. 31, 2025, the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions along the southwest border dropped 85% from the same period in 2024.”

The athlete Trump had as a guest and mentioned in his speech was Payton McNabb, who was injured while playing volleyball against a trans athlete in high school.

The president mentioned her as he touted his executive order prohibiting transgender women and girls from competing in female sports.

Some House Democrats walked out of the chamber after taking off their jackets to reveal words in white on their backs.

Some said, "RESIST."

Rep. Maxwell Frost's said, “NO KINGS LIVE HERE.”

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Trump is floating a plan to mine critical minerals at home.

“Later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in USA,” Trump said.

Asked yesterday if a minerals deal with Ukraine could be revived, Trump told reporters that he would have more to say in his joint address to Congress.

Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, was standing in an aisle and waving his cane at the president, saying, “You do not have a mandate.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Green to take his seat before ordering the House Sergeant at Arms to remove him from the chamber.

Green is a vocal critic of Trump and has multiple times filed articles of impeachment against the president.

Democrats are holding sigs that read "Musk Steals," "Save Medicaid" and "Protect Veterans" while Trump speaks.

The signs were organized by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., was spotted holding a sign that read “This is not normal” as Trump entered the House chamber.

First elected in a special election in 2021 to replace then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Stansbury represents a solidly Democratic district. She also serves as the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said he's not attending Trump's address tonight and will instead be co-hosting an online event titled “Calling BS.”

"I’m not going to the speech tonight," Murphy posted on X just as his fellow senators were entering the House Chamber for the speech. "Honor people who are choosing to go, but I think this is an exceptional moment and I just can’t act like it’s business as usual."

In an interview with MSNBC, Murphy explained his decision to skip the president's remarks.

“He’s not speaking to the nation," Murphy said. "He’s speaking to his base. I think the president has an obligation to deliver a serious speech, and if he fulfills that obligation, that I think Democrats and Republicans should be there, but I don’t think that he is going to do that tonight.”

Murphy called this a "moment to protest," urging people to call their members of Congress and show up to any town halls before states start feeling the adverse effects of tariffs.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins posted a photo with many of Trump's cabinet members and other top officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel, "behind the scenes" before the president's address to Congress.

Behind the scenes with the DREAM TEAM!

We are moments away from game time. See you 🔜 @POTUS! #RenewaloftheAmericanDream pic.twitter.com/JMrTklrykW

— Secretary Brooke Rollins (@SecRollins) March 5, 2025

Trump will address the price of eggs in his speech tonight, claiming they are “out of control” — and placing the blame on former President Joe Biden.

“Joe Biden especially let the price of EGGS get out of control — and we are working hard to get it back down,” Trump will say, according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House.

The price of eggs has soared in recent weeks, largely due to reduced egg supply due to the bird flu pandemic.

Vice President JD Vance and Speaker Mike Johnson were caught on a hot mic chatting when Vance walked in and went up to stand by Johnson. 

Vance says he doesn’t know “how you do this for 90 minutes." Johnson responded saying, “The hardest thing was doing it during Biden. You know the speech was a, a stupid campaign speech.”  

Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

Female members of the Democratic party are wearing pink during Trump's speech tonight to protest the president's policies, which they are say are hurting women.

"Pink is a color of protest & power. We're sending a message: Trump’s policies are devastating women," Rep. Judy Chu posted to X. "He's raising grocery prices, he’s stealing health care, & he’s threatening our safety."

I'm wearing pink tonight w/ @RepTeresaLF & @DemWomenCaucus at Trump's Address to Congress.

Pink is a color of protest & power. We're sending a message: Trump’s policies are devastating women.

He's raising grocery prices, he’s stealing health care, & he’s threatening our safety. pic.twitter.com/TKGBSm8PQm

— Judy Chu (@RepJudyChu) March 4, 2025

As he walked through Statuary Hall to the House chamber, NBC News asked Vice President JD Vance whether Trump will make any announcements on a deal with Ukraine. “Thank you,” Vance replied, with a smile.

Pete Buttigieg met recently with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to discuss the prospect of a Michigan Senate bid in 2026, a source with knowledge of the meeting told NBC News.

Buttigieg, who served as transportation secretary during the Biden administration and ran for president in 2020, remains undecided on whether to run, the source added.

The seat is being vacated by two-term Sen. Gary Peters, a Democrat who announced he won’t run for re-election next year. It is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate races in the country and a must-win for Democrats who start on the back foot with 47 seats and another difficult electoral map this cycle.

Representatives for Schumer and Buttigieg did not provide a comment to NBC News when asked about the meeting.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

The Democratic response to President Donald Trump’s first joint congressional address of his second presidency will be delivered by a freshman Michigan senator who built an extensive national security background before entering politics less than a decade ago.

Elissa Slotkin will deliver the Democratic rebuttal to Trump just two months into her tenure in the U.S. Senate, having narrowly defeated Republican Mike Rogers to win an open battleground seat — despite Trump carrying the state. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., praised Slotkin as “nothing short of a rising star in our party” when announcing her selection on Thursday.

The move comes as Democrats struggle to settle on a unified message against Trump, who has moved swiftly to implement his agenda in his second term while wielding vast executive power. Trump is set to outline his priorities for the year ahead during his address, which is scheduled for Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.

Slotkin is expected to focus on economic issues in her rebuttal amid Trump’s Monday announcement that 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada would begin Tuesday. The move has reignited fears of a North American trade war, which has already shown signs of driving up inflation and stalling growth.

One chair inside the U.S. Capitol will be empty tonight.

The cabinet member who typically occupies it will be nowhere near the building or its surrounding area as Donald Trump delivers his joint address to Congress. He or she will watch the speech from afar, representing the doomsday president in waiting, a title informally known as the "designated survivor."

Who is the designated survivor?

One person is selected to sit out high-profile events like the State of the Union, inaugurations, and presidential speeches to joint sessions of Congress to preserve the Constitutional line of succession to the presidency in the event of a cataclysmic event.

Read the full story here.

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-right Republican members, said they would attempt to censure any Democrat that disrupts Trump's speech tonight.

"The President’s address to tonight’s joint session of Congress is a constitutional obligation — not a sideshow for Democrats to use noisemakers, make threats, throw things or otherwise disrupt," the group said on X.

Freedom Caucus member Rep. Lauren Boebert heckled Biden during his 2022 State of the Union address alongside Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was a member of the conservative bloc at the time.

A censure of a sitting member of Congress would require a majority vote of the entire body. The House voted in 2009 to rebuke Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., for yelling “You lie” at then-President Barack Obama, not quite a censure, but a recognition of disapproval.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., blasted the campaign arm of House Republicans for advising congressional Republicans to avoid in-person town halls following confrontations with angry constituents that have gone viral.

"What does that mean in a democracy when one of the two major political parties in America says, in effect, 'The only way we're going to survive right now is if you don't go talk to the people you represent, if you don't hear from the people you represent,'" Warren told Jen Psaki on MSNBC.

Warren went on to say that Republican leadership was telling its rank-and-file members in the House to put themselves "in a bubble" rather than risk hearing dissent from voters.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said he would be bringing two constituents recently fired from their federal government jobs to Trump's address.

Alissa Ellman is a disabled Army veteran diagnosed with a rare cancer associated with burn pit exposure. She was fired from her job in Buffalo helping fellow veterans obtain benefits.

And Tiffany Ramos was fired from her job in Syracuse helping farms and rural businesses get financial support.

They demonstrate “the real and devastating human impact of Trump’s cruel and shortsighted policies and the destructive cuts,” Schumer said.

A few former park rangers will be in the audience as well as former VA workers.

Some Democratic members of Congress tonight are expected to wear stickers that read in all capital letters, “Elon is stealing Social Security,” according to organizers of the move. 

This unified act of opposition from Democrats in the House chamber is just one of many related to the Elon Musk-led downsizing of the federal government that are expected tonight.

This particular move is being organized by the folks at the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal political action committee. 

Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

A spokesperson for D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed to NBC Washington that the Black Lives Matter Plaza will be renamed. There's no timeline yet for the change.

This comes a day after Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia has introduced legislation that, if passed, would have forced Bowser to rename Black Lives Matter Plaza or else lose federal funding for D.C.

The bill says that the District would have to rename the two-block stretch of 16th Street Northwest Liberty Plaza, update all government websites and documents with the new name, and cover up the Black Lives Matter mural that currently blankets the street.

If unchanged, “certain apportionment funds” would be withheld from the District, according to the bill.

Ahead of Trump's address, protest groups gathered at parks, statehouses and other public grounds across the country to assail his presidency as dangerous and un-American.

The rallies and marches — set in motion by the fledgling 50501 Movement, a volunteer-driven group organized in the weeks after Trump’s inauguration — mark the latest attempt at national resistance to the hardened support of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base and the success it has had in reshaping the Republican Party in the president’s populist image.

Yet some early scenes Tuesday vividly demonstrated the difficulty Democrats, progressives and everyday citizens face in marshaling a tangible response to Trump and the swift, sweeping actions of his second administration. Protesters have so many things to push back against — from tariffs to Trump's reset on the war in Ukraine to the aggressive and sometimes legally dubious actions of the Department of Government Efficiency and its leader, billionaire Elon Musk, that it's hard to know what to focus on.

President Donald Trump will “probably” announce a compromise with Canada and Mexico as early as Wednesday, which could scale back his new 25% tariffs on top U.S trading partners, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.

Lutnick’s comments came minutes after the U.S. stock market limped to a close for a second day of sharp declines, spurred at least in part by investors’ fears that Trump’s aggressive policies will ignite a crippling trade war.

The compromise with Canada and Mexico will probably be revealed as soon as Wednesday, Lutnick said on “Fox Business.”

Read the full story here.

Samuel Corum/Sipa/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Heading into Trump’s address to Congress tonight, here is a status check on how his administration is faring in court.

At least 90 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration since his inauguration, according to an NBC News analysis of court documents.

At least 14 departments or agencies are facing pending litigation. Nine cases have reached the appeals stage and two have reached the Supreme Court: one is a case about USAID funding and the other involves the termination of special counsel Hampton Dellinger.

Here is how the cases break down:

Trump will speak to a divided country tonight when he makes a joint address to Congress, with recent polls showing Americans split on the start of his second term.

Trump’s job approval in various surveys has been largely in the mid-to-high 40s, slightly above where it stood at the start of his first term eight years ago. An NBC News poll in February 2017 found Trump’s approval rating at 44%.

A trio of polls released in recent days found Trump’s job approval rating ranging from 45% in a NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, 48% in a CNN poll, and 51% in a CBS/YouGov poll.

The surveys also showed some concerns about Trump’s early priorities.

Read the full story here on NBCNews.com.

AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.

Some Democratic lawmakers will boycott President Donald Trump’s address Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress.

Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, a state hit hard by federal firings, said he has never missed a speech but that the challenges demand “more than sitting in a chamber” listening as if Trump were not “unleashing chaos and cruelty on their lives.”

“These are not normal times,” Connolly said.

Also in Northern Virginia, Rep. Don Beyer, said he’d be rallying this week with federal workers and contractors.

President Donald Trump, in a joint address to Congress on Tuesday night, is expected to lay out his efforts to rapidly slash the size of the federal government in ways critics warn overstep his authority and threaten lasting damage.

The speech comes as Trump is making a sharp break from the previous administration, both on the international and domestic fronts. On Friday, Trump and Vice President JD Vance had a heated confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, rocking international relations and prompting concerns from critics that the White House is moving away from a democratic ally and hewing closer to Russia, an authoritarian adversary.

Tuesday's speech — Trump's first address to Congress of his second term — gives him the opportunity to further justify the shake-ups, both at home and abroad, to lawmakers and the public, and to preview what's coming next.

The president plans to use the address to tout what he views as his administration's initial successes, while also hosting guests the White House said benefited from Trump's first term, according to an administration official and a senior White House official.

Read the full story here.