Trump to proclaim success of first year in lengthy State of the Union speech

Donald Trump will deliver the annual State of the Union address Tuesday evening, where he is set to proclaim the success of his first year in office before an American public that polls show has soured on his handling of the issues they care about most.

The speech to a joint session of Congress will be a key moment ahead of the November midterm elections, in which Trump’s Republican allies are defending their slim control of the Senate and House of Representatives. It will take place amid a decline in Trump’s approval ratings fueled by discontent with his handling of the economy and immigration, both issues at the center of his successful re-election campaign in 2024.

The president will deliver his address amid a military buildup over Iran that raises the possibility of Trump ordering strikes against the longtime American adversary, just weeks after his special forces seized Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro and took him to stand trial on US soil.

On Monday, the president said he planned for a lengthy address.

“It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about,” Trump said.

For Democrats, the address presents them with their own, albeit smaller, platform to make their case to voters. After the party was mocked for having lawmakers hold up paddle-shaped protest signs when Trump addressed Congress last year, Democratic leaders have changed their approach, deputizing Abigail Spanberger, who was elected governor of Virginia in a landslide last November, to deliver the traditional response to the president’s speech, while California senator Alex Padilla will give the Spanish-language version.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said most of his lawmakers would chose one of two options when it came to the speech: “Attend in silent defiance, or not attend, and send a message to Donald Trump in that fashion.”

Those who plan to skip include Arizona senator Ruben Gallego, a potential presidential contender in 2028. “This administration continues to disregard the rule of law and the constitution while failing to lower costs for American families. I have more productive ways to spend two hours than listening to more lies. I’ll pass,” he said in a statement.

Gallego is slated to be among the Democratic lawmakers taking part in a counter-programming event organized by progressive media outlet MeidasTouch and liberal group MoveOn.

Others have chosen to use their plus ones as a way to signal disapproval with Trump’s policies, or focus attention on uncomfortable subjects. Many Democrats have opted to invite as guests survivors of Jeffrey Epstein, the deceased financier and one-time friend of the president who has been at the center of a roiling political intrigue after Congress mandated that files related to his sex-trafficking prosecutions be made public.

“The Trump administration is fighting our push for justice at every step with a cover-up. It is an honor to bring Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s family as our guests for the State of the Union, to be a visible reminder to Trump that we’re not giving in or giving up,” said congressman Suhas Subramanyam, who has invited relatives of the prominent Epstein survivor.

In a nod to Trump’s hardline immigration policies, Arizona congresswoman Adelita Grijalva said in a statement that rather than attending, she had given her ticket to another congresswoman so that she could bring a US citizen of Somali descent who had been arrested by immigration agents.

“If Trump wants to boast about his reckless and unconstitutional immigration enforcement, he should do it in front of the people who these policies have directly harmed,” Grijalva said.

The speech in the chamber of the House of Representatives is expected to be well attended by Trump’s congressional allies, as well as some supreme court justices, whose interactions with the president may be revealing.

The court’s conservative majority has generally not stood in the way of the president’s efforts to expand executive power over the past year until last week, when it struck down his attempts to unilaterally impose tariffs on a host of trading partners. That sparked a tirade from Trump, who called the justices that disagreed with him “fools”, and said he was “ashamed” of them.

Justices who do attend will be seated in the front row, right next to Trump’s cabinet.