Just in : President Donald Trump will shock the nation tonight 7 things to watch for during Trump’s joint address to Congress

BREAKING NEWS!!!President Donald Trump will shock the nation tonight 7 things to watch for during Trump’s joint address to Congress

President Donald Trump arrives to deliver the State of the Union address in the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol in Washington,

President Donald Trump shocked the nation eight years ago when his first joint address to Congress was, well, presidential.
There was none of what the president now likes to call his “weaves” — digressions from his prepared remarks and other tangents. There was no bashing of the media, no name-calling of his opponents. But Trump is not the man he was in 2017. Emboldened by his sweeping victory, and still seething over the persecution he believes he suffered when he was out of office, the president has more leeway this time around. What that will mean for his address to Congress on Tuesday is anybody’s guess at this point.

“TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
The theme of Trump’s speech will be the “renewal of the American Dream,” and it will include sections on the economy, border security and foreign policy, Fox News reported ahead of the address. An outside political adviser to the president, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told POLITICO the president plans a heavy emphasis on immigration, with the invited guests expected to feature people whose family members were victims of crimes committed by undocumented migrants.

It is also widely expected that the slashing of the federal bureaucracy will come up in the president’s speech, as the so-called Department of Government Efficiency cuts have dominated his first month in office. And the president is expected to mention the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, with someone who was at the rally anticipated to attend, the adviser said.
But if he goes off script? All bets are off, and anyone could find themselves in the president’s crosshairs.

“He’s not a sweeping orator. He tends to be a tactical orator off the prompter, and that’s what I would anticipate,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist who has been a vocal Trump defender on CNN and who was at one point considered for Trump’s press secretary post.

Here’s a look at what to watch for during the Tuesday night address, which begins at 9 p.m. ET.

1. How does Trump address people’s frustrations with high prices?
Trump wasn’t thrilled with talking about high prices on the campaign trail. He famously complained to his supporters at an Inauguration Day rally, “How many times can you say an apple has doubled in cost?”

That attitude has been borne out through his first month-plus in office, with the president spending more time talking about Elon Musk’s efforts to dismantle the federal government and renaming the Gulf of America than he has about inflation. That focus on DOGE has made his allies increasingly uneasy.
Polling shows inflation and high prices remain the top issue Americans are concerned about, and many of them don’t think this administration is doing enough to address them. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 52 percent of respondents don’t think Trump is doing enough to help the economy and bring down prices, and the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plummeted to a 15-month low in February.

“Economy and illegal immigration. Those were, I believe, the two things that propelled Donald Trump to the White House for a second time, and he has to address both issues with the same verve,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “Ignore the voter discontent on the economy at your own peril
Expect the president to tout the U.S. manufacturing investments companies have made since he took office in January. That includes chip maker TSMC’s Monday announcement that it plans to invest $100 billion in U.S. chip plants, building on the $500 billion investment from Apple and the $27 billion investment from pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly announced last week. It’s a move that would echo the approach he took during his first address to Congress in 2017, when he touted investments from Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed Martin, Intel, Walmart and others.

The president’s allies argue that it’s been only a month, and that no one expected the economy to change overnight. And they say he is addressing the economy with tariffs aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and executive orders targeting domestic fossil fuel production, along with cuts to federal spending they argue will yield an economic benefit down the road by improving the country’s fiscal health and boosting the private sector.

But it’s unclear whether all of that will be enough to satisfy Americans who are still feeling the pinch of inflation on their wallets. And new tariffs, some of which took effect Tuesday, could make inflation even worse.

“Blanket tariffs make it more expensive to do business in America, driving up costs for consumers across the board,” former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued in a recent op-ed. “Broad-based tariffs could have long-term consequences right in our backyard.”

2. How much time does Trump spend talking about DOGE? And how does he frame Musk’s role?
Trump’s first month in office has been dominated by DOGE’s efforts to upend the federal bureaucracy, cut federal workers and unilaterally slash federal spending. Some of the president’s allies, however, fear DOGE is sucking up too much of the president’s time
Polling shows inflation and high prices remain the top issue Americans are concerned about, and many of them don’t think this administration is doing enough to address them. A recent Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 52 percent of respondents don’t think Trump is doing enough to help the economy and bring down prices, and the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index plummeted to a 15-month low in February.

“Economy and illegal immigration. Those were, I believe, the two things that propelled Donald Trump to the White House for a second time, and he has to address both issues with the same verve,” said Barrett Marson, a GOP strategist in Arizona. “Ignore the voter discontent on the economy at your own peril.”
Expect the president to tout the U.S. manufacturing investments companies have made since he took office in January. That includes chip maker TSMC’s Monday announcement that it plans to invest $100 billion in U.S. chip plants, building on the $500 billion investment from Apple and the $27 billion investment from pharmaceutical manufacturer Eli Lilly announced last week. It’s a move that would echo the approach he took during his first address to Congress in 2017, when he touted investments from Ford, Fiat-Chrysler, General Motors, Sprint, Softbank, Lockheed Martin, Intel, Walmart and others.

The president’s allies argue that it’s been only a month, and that no one expected the economy to change overnight. And they say he is addressing the economy with tariffs aimed at boosting domestic manufacturing and executive orders targeting domestic fossil fuel production, along with cuts to federal spending they argue will yield an economic benefit down the road by improving

3. How does Trump talk about the administration’s progress on mass deportations?
Immigration is one of the president’s favorite topics. During his inaugural address, he promised his administration would begin the work of deporting “millions and millions” of immigrants with criminal records. But immigration has taken an unusually low-profile role in the early weeks of his administration as officials have seen lower-than-hoped-for numbers of deportations — and Trump himself has been reportedly unhappy with the administration’s progress.

The administration has yet to release official, comprehensive deportation numbers. But a recent Reuters report, referencing unpublished DHS data, found that the U.S. deported 37,660 people during Trump’s first month in office. That’s down from a monthly average of 57,000 during the last year of the Biden administration, though administration officials have disputed the latter set of numbers as “artificially high” because of higher levels of illegal immigration.

But expect immigration to once again be in the spotlight on Tuesday night, the outside Trump adviser said. A recent Harvard-Harris poll found that immigration remains one of Americans’ top issues only behind inflation, with 81 percent of respondents supporting the deportation of immigrants who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes, including 70 percent of Democrats.

Trump is likely to focus on a second set of immigration metrics his administration considers more positive: plummeting border crossings. Trump announced on Truth Social over the weekend that 8,326 people were apprehended at the border in February, the lowest number in at least 25 years — and a fraction of the 29,000 people who were apprehended in January and the 47,000 detained in December. (It’s worth noting border crossings had already dropped significantly under Biden’s efforts to clamp down on asylum.)
Fox News reported the president will use the speech to push Congress to pass more border security funding to support deportations and border wall construction.

4. About that mineral deal with Ukraine …
The televised blowup between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on Friday shocked much of the world and dashed hopes for a rare earth mineral deal that could have paved the way for a ceasefire. Trump, who in the run-up to the meeting had taken to social media to call Zelenskyy a “dictator,” accused the Ukrainian president of being ungrateful for U.S. support in the war and argued that he had “no cards” to play and was in “no position to make requests.”
Trump told reporters Monday afternoon that he would address whether that deal can be revived during the Tuesday night speech, saying that it would be “great” for the U.S. He’s also likely to address other hot-button foreign policy topics including the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and a new trade war with Canada and Mexico, after 25 percent tariffs on the countries took effect Tuesday.

Watch to see also how he talks about the leaders of U.S. adversaries, like China President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and those of its allies, like Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron — and which ones he name-checks.
Other topics likely to come up: the Gulf of America, buying (or otherwise negotiating a deal with) Greenland for national security and critical mineral purposes, retaking the Panama Canal and — depending on how punchy the president is feeling toward the country’s neighbor to the north — making Canada the 51st state.

5. What’s his message to Congress?
Trump has made clear his desire to extend his 2017 tax cuts and boost border funding. But he’s largely left the details of how to do so up to Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune. He only dipped his toe into the reconciliation waters last week when the resolution Trump has referred to as “one big, beautiful bill” appeared to be heading for defeat in the House, making calls that persuaded some holdouts to switch their votes at the last minute.