| March 03, 2025 07:13:17 AM |
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| March 03, 2025 07:13:17 AM |
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President Donald Trump appears before Congress Tuesday night for a big speech, which looks like a State of the Union address – but technically isn’t. We take a look at what to look and listen for.
Welcome to this week’s edition of AP Ground Game. |
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FILE - President Donald Trump gestures at his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) |
What to watch when Trump gives his big speech to Congress |
First, where will Elon Musk be? The most powerful people in American government are usually on the dais during an event like Tuesday’s speech, with the House speaker and the vice president — who doubles as the ceremonial leader of the Senate — sitting behind the president.
But both of those leaders have largely been overshadowed by Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur overseeing the Department of Government Efficiency and serving as a top adviser to Trump. Maybe Musk will be in the gallery, where the president’s special guests sit. Or maybe he’ll be somewhere else?
What does Trump say about Ukraine? It's been only a few days since the most dramatic encounter in the Oval Office in recent memory, with a deal involving critical mineral falling apart after Trump and Vice President JD Vance laced into Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy over a perceived lack of respect.
How do lawmakers behave? From South Carolina Republican Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” shout at President Barack Obama's congressional address in 2009, to President Joe Biden’s own back-and-forth with Republicans, presidential speeches to Congress have become rowdier affairs in recent years. Read more.
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Of note:
How long will Trump stick to the teleprompter? The president is in his element when he's delivering freewheeling remarks, bouncing from topic to topic in what he likes to call “the weave.” But that's not usually how these kinds of speeches go. They're often carefully scripted – the kind of monologue that Trump might label “BORING” in a post on Truth Social if he was watching it on television. |
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Following Trump's lead, his allies lash out at Ukraine's Zelenskyy |
From Washington on Sunday, Trump’s senior aides and allies lashed out at Zelenskyy as he attended a European summit in London to rally international support for his military’s fight against the Russian invasion.
Following Trump’s lead, White House officials and Republicans in Congress used news show appearances to demand that Zelenskyy display more gratitude for U.S. support and an openness to potential war-ending concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Some suggested Zelenskyy should consider resigning. White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Zelenskyy’s behavior at the White House was “incredibly disrespectful.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., suggested that Zelenskyy may need to step aside, saying on NBC’s ”Meet the Press” that, “Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude, or someone else needs to lead the country to do that.”
Trump’s director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, told “Fox News Sunday” that the contentious meeting has led to “a huge rift in the relationship.” Read more. |
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Of note:
The Trump allies offered little clarity as to what Zelenskyy and Ukraine could do after Friday’s Oval Office meeting in which Trump and Vance berated him before canceling the signature of an economic agreement between Washington and Kyiv. The dispute leaves the future of that relationship in question, as well as the prospects for ending a conflict that began when the Kremlin invaded in February 2022. |
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Republicans once maligned Medicaid. Now some see program too big to touch |
As a deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown nears, hesitation is surfacing among Washington’s Republican lawmakers — once reliable critics of lofty government social welfare programs like Medicaid — who say that deep cuts to the health care program could prove too untenable for people back home. States and the federal government jointly pay for Medicaid, which offers nearly-free health care coverage for roughly 80 million poor and disabled Americans, including millions of children. It cost $880 billion to operate in 2023. Read more. |
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Of note:
Significant changes to Medicaid are still on the table. They have to be for Republicans get the savings they need to pay for tax cuts. Work requirements, which could save as much as $109 billion over the next decade, seem to have solid support among GOP members, with some individual Republican-led states already moving to implement them. |
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Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, center, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, and France's President Emmanuel Macron meet during the European leaders' summit to discuss Ukraine, hosted by Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer, at Lancaster House, London, Sunday March 2, 2025. (Justin Tallis/Pool via AP) |
- On Tuesday, Trump gives the first joint address to Congress of his second term in office.
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