Lemon LIVE Special | Trump's Address to Congress: WTF Will He Say Now?!
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What context and concerns does Don Lemon set up before Trump’s joint address begins?
All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We are watching now this joint address to Congress about to start at any moment now. We will be playing it for you on the Don Lemon Show channel so that you can get to see all of it if you care to watch it. I think it is important now, especially the moment that we're in when we have all these pulling back of federal money, the now tariffs on China, tariffs on Mexico, tariffs on Canada. We're at a very volatile point. Donald Trump defying federal judges. I tend to believe that we are in the middle right now. My assessment is that we are in the middle now of a dictatorship, at least the start of a dictatorship. And so now the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, from my home state of Louisiana, is calling to order this joint session.
And let me just tell you, the reason that this is not called a State of the Union is for a very good reason, because, quite frankly, it is not a State of the Union at this point. The President, usually it's a State of the Union when the President has had one year in office. Something to really assess. So welcome to this special edition of the Don Lemon Show. Tonight, Donald Trump is going to make his first address to a joint session of Congress since his return to office. His speech, which is not an official State of the Union address, it comes to six weeks since his swearing in, since the president has signed dozens of executive orders that have aimed to dramatically slash the federal workforce. to eliminate diversity and equity efforts in the government and decrease illegal immigration.
All topics that the president is likely to touch on his remarks as he asks Congress to fund his agenda. They are now opening the doors, bringing in members of the administration, and then the president of the United States will follow. This is very much in line, as I said, as to what would look a lot like a state of the union he loves the attention he loves the accolades so he wants to walk down that aisle just like every one else every other president when it's actually an official state of the union address since 1981 in recognition that the responsibility of reporting the state of the union should belong to a president who has held office for at least one year newly inaugurated presidents have not officially held a state of the union message this is
unusual. This is sort of a makeshift state of the union. I think it's to sort of galvanize the MAGA crowd and to, I think, show power and really to show that he is in charge of every lever of the government. The legislative branch, that's where he's going to be joining them in the Congress, now in the well of the Congress. He's going to be joining them. And basically ignoring the will of the Congress, Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress and in the Senate as well, and just basically overruling them on everything. Not an official veto, but just the executive order and just really ignoring them and ignoring federal judges.
Okay.
So that's why this is not an official state of the union message. President's speech comes as tensions have escalated with the United States, three largest trading partners. Today, the U.S. initiated new tariffs against China, against Canada and Mexico, which resulted in this aggressive retaliatory tariffs. The budding trade war is expected to raise costs for consumers, send markets plummeting on Tuesday. Did it cause a recession? Well, top economists say almost certainly yes. So they're making announcements of the folks who are coming in. Again, these are members of the president's cabinets, other dignitaries. You see the Supreme Court justices there. I think you see John Roberts joining Brett Kavanaugh, Sonia Sotomayor,
you see, and others that are joining the rest of the Supreme Court justices. And so as they're making their way in, we will get to the president of the United States soon. So we're watching the live feed here. I'm interested to know what he's going to say. I don't know if you're interested to know, but I'm certainly interested in knowing what he's going to say.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What context and concerns does Don Lemon set up before Trump’s joint address begins?
0:14–22:24
2
Why are Democrats debating whether to attend or boycott the joint address?
22:24–1:00:08
3
Who is in Trump’s ‘cabinet of misfits’ and why does the panel critique it?
1:00:08–1:39:00
4
How did Trump attack transgender care and ‘wokeness’ during the speech?
1:39:00–1:42:20
5
What military and foreign policy proposals (Golden Dome, Greenland, Ukraine) did Trump outline?
1:42:20–1:45:49
6
Why did the hosts call the speech a performance and weaponization of props?
1:45:49–1:54:04
7
How are Democrats, independent media, and panelists reacting and planning to respond?
1:54:04–3:06:09
Speakers
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