On March 4, President Donald Trump delivered an address to before a joint session of Congress’s two houses. Similar to a State of the Union address, though not officially called one, the speech detailed the accomplishments of the administration and its priorities for the future. Claiming that “America is back,” Trump discussed his over 100 executive orders and 400 executive actions, and mentioned specific campaign promises and other major policy changes.
These policies included day-one state of emergency due to a purported rise in illegal border crossings; freezes on hiring federal workers and foreign aid; withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations Human Rights Council; the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, respectively; and the termination of environmental regulation, “government censorship,” and “so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.”
Trump placed great emphasis on the removal of DEI, affirmative action, and similar progressive civil rights policies. After a brief mention of the removal of “the poison of critical race theory,” Trump focused on his work to undo advancements in transgender rights under the Biden administration. He trumpeted his policies of recognizing only two genders within the federal government and to “ban men from women’s sports,” before mentioning a student athlete who was injured by a transgender opponent. Indeed, Trump signed several executive orders placing restrictions on rights for transgender people within the opening weeks of his second term, including one on the first day, in addition to the sports ban for trans women and recognition of only two “immutable” sexes, the orders also included bans for federal funding to schools that facilitates “radical indoctrination” and any healthcare facility that provides gender-affirming care to minors and adults under the age of nineteen.
Trump also claimed economic successes, including a reduction of inflation and a drastic increase of tariffs for incoming imports from locations including Canada, China, Mexico, and the European Union. The address also detailed changes effected by Elon Musk’s Department of Governmental Efficiency that resulted in spending cuts for various programs considered to be wasteful or inefficient.
Across the entire speech, Trump made numerous false and misleading claims related to his accomplishments and policies. He overstated the number of illegal border crossings under the Biden administration and the effect his administration had on inflation. His frequent claim that tariffs benefit American consumers has been rejected by economists due to tariffs increasing the costs passed to consumers and their effect on inflation. His claim of widespread social security fraud involving records of deceased payment recipients (including a 360 year old individual receiving social security payments) is false, with the Social Security Administration having implemented a system to terminate payments for people over 115 years of age in 2015. Trump also falsely claimed that DOGE uncovered “hundreds of billions of dollars” in fraud, but the office has instead only listed $8.86 in reduced spending on March 3, a number itself also misleading due it only consisting of cancelled contracts—with no evidence of actual fraud—with the dollar amounts sometimes being double-counted for certain items, and listing rarely-reached upper spending limits for others. Some cancelled spending—like grants for research—involved programs merely contrary to the administration’s policy goals.
Throughout the address, members of Congress from the Democratic party held up signs in protest of Trump’s policies and false or misleading information. Representative Al Green (D–TX) shouted in protest and was removed from the chamber and later censured by the Republican-majority House.
