RECAP: President Trump Delivers Triumphant, Eventful Address to Congress

President Donald Trump took the podium on Tuesday night to deliver a triumphant address to a joint session of Congress following the most active first six weeks of a presidency in modern history. Along with what was undoubtedly one of Trump’s best speeches, the evening was filled with plenty of other drama and theatrics from congressional Democrats.

“We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in four years or eight years, and we are just getting started,” Trump said at the start of the speech. “I returned 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. 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.”

But before Trump could go any further, Texas Democrat Al Green stood up and began shouting while shaking his cane in the air. In response, Republicans stood up and drowned out Green with chants of “USA.” House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the Sergeant at Arms to remove Green, who also received a torrent of criticism online for the outburst.

The president went on to recount the historic successes his administration has led since January 20, including signing more than 100 executive orders and more than 400 executive actions. From a historic high under Joe Biden, illegal border crossings have now reached a historic low. Trump ended Biden’s EV mandate, re-opened federal lands for oil and gas drilling, withdrew from the World Health Organization, slashed regulations, renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, designated English as the official language of the United States, ended the weaponization of government, required federal employees to return to work, protected girls sports, upheld the biological truth of the gender binary, and cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending – just to name a few accomplishments that he recounted.

As AMAC Newsline predicted last week, Trump also took special care to shout out DOGE and some of the fraudulent spending the office had identified. “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,” Trump said.

In another installment of what has become perhaps the most famous part of Trump’s State-of-the-Union style speeches, the 47th president also shouted out various guests in attendance.

Those guests included January Littlejohn, a mother and parental rights advocate whose daughter was secretly “socially transitioned” by her school. Littlejohn notably spoke at AMAC’s inaugural “Bootcamp for Boomers” last year about her experience.

“Our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you,” Trump said in one of his most beautiful lines of the evening.

In another touching moment, Trump also honored Allyson and Lauren Phillips, the mother and sister of Laken Riley, a nursing student who was murdered by an illegal alien in Georgia last year. The first bill that Trump signed into law this year was named in her honor.

Other guests included the widow and daughters of Corey Comperatore, a firefighter who was killed by the gunman who also shot Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania last year; Marc Fogel, an American history teacher who was held hostage by the Russian government until Trump brought him home in February; Alexis Nungaray, the mother of a 12-year-old girl who was murdered by two illegal immigrants; Roberto Ortiz, a veteran and U.S. Border Patrol agent; Jeff Denard, a steelworker; Stephanie Diller, the widow of a New York police officer who was murdered at a traffic stop in Queens in March 2024 by a repeat criminal; Elliston Berry, a 15-year-old victim of computer-generated deepfakes; Haley Ferguson, a former foster child and a Fostering the Future scholarship recipient, which was launched by First Lady Melania Trump’s Be Best organization; and Payton McNabb, a former high school volleyball player who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the hands of a male athlete during a match in 2022.

While the White House announced that these guests would be in attendance, Trump also had a few more surprises in store.

One of those surprises was for Jason Hartley, a high school senior whose father, a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, died in 2018. After bragging on Hartley (who has a 4.46 GPA and earned six varsity letters), Trump informed him that he had earned admission to West Point, fulfilling his dream of carrying on his family’s legacy of military service.

In another moment that was sure to bring a tear to even the driest eye, Trump also made a dream come true for 13-year-old DJ Daniel, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018. DJ has hopes of becoming a police officer, and Trump fulfilled that wish by making DJ an honorary Secret Service agent. The stirring image of DJ’s smiling father lifting his son in the air, proudly displaying his new credentials, is sure to be one of the best to emerge from Trump’s second term.

While these moments were heartwarming for Americans of all political stripes, they apparently failed to move congressional Democrats, who flatly refused to stand and clap for any of the president’s guests. In an interview after the speech, Alexis Nungaray slammed Democrats for refusing to honor her daughter, who was brutally murdered by illegal aliens. “Democrats don’t stand for anything humane,” she said. “They don’t stand for us citizens. They don’t stand for our security. They don’t stand for honorable things we need in this country.”

But even before Trump began introducing his guests, he predicted this shameful pattern of political partisanship. “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,” Trump said. “It’s very sad, and it just shouldn’t be this way. 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.”

Needless to say, that invitation was not accepted.

Democrats also brought signs to the speech reading “false,” “lies,” “save Medicaid,” and “Musk steals,” holding them up at various points throughout the remarks. But as could be expected in the age of the internet, conservative meme-makers quickly photoshopped images of Democrats holding the signs to read things like “I love war,” “America last,” “I steal from taxpayers,” “illegals first,” and “I voted against women.” It was one of the greatest political backfires in recent memory.

As one X user succinctly summed it up, mocking Democrats’ apparent thought process, “What if we bring silly little signs and don’t clap for a child with brain cancer?”

But it wasn’t just congressional Democrats who embarrassed themselves. Corporate media talking heads also devolved into outright hysteria over the speech. In an appalling comment, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow called Trump honoring DJ Daniel “disgusting.” The network’s Nicolle Wallace, meanwhile, bizarrely attempted to link Daniel’s aspirations of becoming a police officer to January 6, saying she hopes he doesn’t “lose his life to suicide.”

Despite these disgraceful efforts to politicize the unifying moments in the speech, a CBS News poll showed that an astonishing 76 percent of respondents who watched the speech approved of what Trump had to say – a data point that is sure to terrify Democrat consultants. Try as they might, the liberal messaging machine just can’t hide the fact that Trump’s agenda is overwhelmingly popular with the American people.

On a CNN panel after the speech, commentator Scott Jennings provided perhaps the best synopsis of the evening: “It was a dreadful night for the Democrats. They entered this speech already defeated and lost in front of Donald Trump, and it seems to me that they are even more lost and defeated than they were when the speech began.”

Once again, Trump delivered a rhetorical masterclass and must-watch television, setting the stage for what is sure to be an exciting year ahead.

Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.