Special coverage of Donald Trump's address to a joint session of Congress
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What was Donald Trump's main message in his Congress address?
That was the longest State of the Union address in American history. Donald Trump addressing Congress for the fifth time in a setting like this. Just looking to see if he's actually going to start speaking again. started off on very contentious terms, Congressman Al Green interrupting at the outset when the president claimed a historic mandate from his victory in the 2024 election. Congressman Green repeatedly interjecting and then removed by the orders of the sergeant at arms while Republican members of Congress jeered and made gestures toward him, celebrating him being ejected over the course of the president's remarks. see how many empty seats you can see behind him just there. That's because Democrats as a group filed out quickly when he was done, but a number of Democrats left well before he was done, in the middle of his remarks. They included Jasmine Crockett from Texas, Maxwell Frost walked out, Maxine Dexter from Maryland, Andrea Salinas from Oregon, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Pamila Jayapal. That's only a partial list, a number of Democrats left during
the remarks. The president, in his what we believe was ad-libbing, we did not have prepared remarks from the president, which is unusual. White Houses usually distribute prepared remarks, so we don't know what was digression from those remarks and what was ad-libbed. But the president did repeatedly seem to be ad-libbing when he was remarking on the expected impact of the economic decisions he's already made six weeks in, saying that the American people would have to bear with him, that there would be a little disturbance, that there would be an adjustment period. And again, he said, a little disturbance, essentially suggesting that the roiling that we saw in the markets is something that he knows he caused, but he hopes people will not mind.
For the record, the worst inflation in this country was in 1980. For the record, the economy that he was left by President Biden was not a catastrophe. It was literally the best economy in the world and was described by The Economist magazine as the envy of the world. That was the economy that was left to Donald Trump by Joe Biden. For the record, Social Security is not paying benefits in large numbers to 300-year-old people or 250-year-old people or 200-year-old people or 150-year-old people. In fact, the idea of Social Security as a bastion of massive fraud and overpayment is completely false. For the record, U.S. auto company CEOs are not psyched and delighted and so excited about President Trump's economic policies, including his tariffs. Take, for example, the CEO of Ford, Jim Farley, who said that Trump's tariff policies would, quote, blow a hole in the U.S. auto industry that, quote, we've never seen. The president flat out lied about U.S.
versus European spending to support what used to be our allies in Ukraine. U.S. has committed about $125 billion to Ukraine's defense. Europe has committed about $259 billion. The president radically, radically misstating the character and quantity of our relative support for what used to be our ally now appears to be only Europe's ally and no longer ours. For the record, Joe Biden did not close over 100 power plants. There were more utility-sized power plants up and running in the United States when Joe Biden left office than when he achieved office. For the record, there is no EV mandate. For the record, oil and gas production in the United States hit all-time records under President Joe Biden.
For the record, even Doge has never claimed that they have saved hundreds of billions of dollars in savings. The largest items they have claimed to achieve as savings in the U.S. budget have been debunked and they've been taken down, but even they don't falsely claim hundreds of billions of dollars worth of savings. For the record, and this is disgusting, the president made a spectacle out of praising a young man who thus far survived pediatric cancer as if the president had something to do with that. This was in the midst of him praising Doge. Doge cuts, among other things, have cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer.
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