President Donald Trump’s first State of the Union address of his second term in office comes at a pivotal time for both the president and the presidency.
According to the White House, the president will use the speech to celebrate the upcoming 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding, and argue the nation remains in strong shape.
“President Trump's State of the Union Address will celebrate 250 glorious years of our nation's independence and excellence, highlighting incredible stories of American heroes throughout the speech,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “In one year, President Trump has turned our country around from the brink of disaster, and he will rightly declare the State of Our Union is strong, prosperous, and respected. The President will proudly tout his Administration's many record-breaking accomplishments, and also lay out an ambitious agenda to continue bringing the American Dream back for working people."
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For Trump, the high-interest speech offers an opportunity to speak directly to Americans increasingly souring on him; a recent Scripps News/Talker Research poll of 1,000 Americans found a plurality, 47%, somewhat or strongly disapprove of his job in office, while 44% somewhat or strongly approve. Voters polled gave Trump especially poor marks for his handling of economic issues, inflation, civil rights and healthcare.
The address also comes as the president is weathering several political and legislative challenges. On Friday, the U.S Supreme Court handed Trump a major rebuke when a majority of justices found the president’s attempts to levy sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners under emergency powers unlawful. Trump is expected to address tariffs in his address – speaking before many of the same Justices who voted to strike them down – as he has moved to enact a 10 percent global import duty under a different authority.
Meanwhile, Trump will speak to Congress amid a partial government shutdown, as lawmakers failed to agree on a funding package for the Department of Homeland Security as its Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities have drawn bipartisan rebukes at times, particularly after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota. Trump will call for Democrats to reopen DHS, Leavitt said, though lawmakers remain far apart on negotiations over reforms to ICE Democrats say are needed to secure their votes.
“I think that Trump has stalled and that he will be looking for a way to end his slump,” David Eisenhower, grandson of President Dwight Eisenhower and a scholar of presidential communication at the University of Pennsylvania, told Scripps News of Trump’s speech.
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One upside for Trump? Americans are expected to tune into his speech in droves, as voters remain concerned about the economy and immigration matters. Two-thirds of respondents to Scripps News’ poll said this year’s address is more important than previous ones, with nearly half the country especially interested in hearing the president speak about the economy, inflation and high costs.
It’s Trump’s economy, for better and worse
Sources in and outside of the White House tell Scripps News that Trump’s remarks will focus heavily on the economy, as Americans continue to struggle with the high cost of living.
The president is expected to tout his signature legislative package, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” that eased taxes on tipped workers and overtime pay and increased tax deductions for seniors, as well as highlight economic indicators showing progress towards cost-savings, such as falling mortgage rates and steady economic growth.
“The president will lay out the case for why he and Republicans are better suited to tackle, continue tackling, the affordability crisis that was created by the Biden administration and Democrats on Capitol Hill,” Leavitt said. “Over the past year, there has been tremendous progress to move the ball forward attaining the level of economic prosperity we had under President Trump’s first term.”
Trump will announce that some tech companies involved in AI development have voluntarily agreed to pay higher electricity rates to help offset increased consumer costs from data centers, according to a White House official.
Several AI companies have already made such pledges in recent months.
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The president could call on Congress to codify many aspects of his agenda he’s thus-far pursued via executive action, Danielle Alvarez, a senior advisor to the Republican National Committee, told Scripps News.
“This is going to be his opportunity to tell his story, what his administration has done,” Alvarez said, noting she expects him to be “leaning on Congress to codify what he has been able to do by pulling executive levers through executive orders, codifying that into law, and of course, tackling those issues that he will lay out tonight as we head into those midterms and make the argument in the case of the American people, that Republicans should hold on to majorities.”
To that end, Eisenhower noted that Trump’s approval among Americans “seems to move up when he eases up on executive actions, and it moves downward when Trump gets busy with noisy executive actions.”
“A focus on legislation” would serve the president well, he added.
And yet, Republicans maintain just a single vote margin in the U.S. House of Representatives and nowhere near the 60 votes required to overturn a Senate filibuster. With such political realities, the prospects for significant legislative action on GOP priorities are unclear.
Trump’s economic focus comes as the president has offered mixed responses to Americans concerned about high prices, repeatedly suggesting the word “affordability” is a “hoax” and “scam” perpetrated by Democrats. The White House has sought to put the onus on Democrats to address affordability concerns, despite data showing all Americans – including Republicans – remain concerned about inflation and the high cost of living.
As recently as last week, Trump suggested he’d already “won” the issue.
“What word have you not heard over the last two weeks? Affordability,” Trump told rally attendees at a steel distributor in Rome, Georgia. “Because I’ve won. I’ve won affordability.”
Officials close to the White House tell Scripps News they’re optimistic Americans concerned about Trump’s handling of the economy will be moved by larger tax refunds set to be issued in the coming weeks, and other forthcoming economic improvements.
“Families are seeing increases immediately in their take home pay, businesses are expanding, they're giving bonuses, they're hiring,” Tiffany Justice, executive vice president of the conservative advocacy group Heritage Action, told Scripps News. “It's just wonderful to see the economy thriving, and families are really feeling the impacts of that.”
Even still, some Republicans acknowledged the president has some work to do to sell Americans on his vision, especially with the 2026 midterms nearing. Republican political strategist Brian Seitchik told Scripps News that Trump must make the case to the American people that his actions have benefited their everyday lives, though he expressed optimism in the president’s salesman abilities.
Immigration agenda, foreign wars to loom large
Despite the economic focus, Trump will no doubt also address other domestic and international matters that have dominated the headlines in recent months.
Trump is “a victim of his own success on this issue in that the border is effectively closed,” said Seitchik, argued
The president focused on immigration ahead of the speech, hosting families of those killed by undocumented immigrants at the White House this week. The president will likely tout his immigration agenda, specifically the very low number of unlawful border crossings, though new polling also shows Americans’ concerns about ICE tactics growing.
Then there’s Trump’s efforts on the world stage – with scrutiny on Iran, Venezuela and Ukraine, among other conflicts.
“You’ll hear the president tout the accomplishments overseas of the U.S. military over the past year under his leadership, one of which of course was Midnight Hammer,” Leavitt told reporters. “You’ll hear the president proudly and rightfully say the U.S. military is the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world and you will hear him talk about the threats that remain abroad.”
Just two days after his speech, senior administration officials will travel to Geneva for further talks with Iranian leaders, as the Pentagon continues an unprecedented buildup of war assets in the Middle East and President Trump weighs options for potential military action.
The speech falls as Ukraine marks the start of the 5th year of Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. has hosted trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in efforts of reaching a thus far elusive peace deal. The Ukrainian ambassador to the US, Olga Stefanishyna, expects to hear messages on ending the war.
“We wanted President Trump to hear us ahead of the speech that you know, despite all the complexity and tragedy of what is happening in Ukraine, still Ukrainian people very much rely on his leadership. And although we have, you know, been in such a controversial and transformative period, we have already reached a lot of goals,” Stefanishyna said.
Democrats split: to blast, or boycott
Democrats, for their part, have largely split on the best approach to countering Trump’s speech.
Newly-elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger will deliver the official Democratic response, speaking live from Colonial Williamsburg – a place specifically chosen for its symbolic role in the foundation of American democracy, Scripps News is told.
Spanberger — a popular swing-state governor with a background in federal law enforcement – will, like Trump, focus her remarks on affordability, highlighting especially the high costs of energy, housing and healthcare.
Officials working with Spanberger tell Scripps News she’ll address the “chaos” brought about by Trump’s policies, leaning into her background as a CIA officer to argue the Trump administration has increased instability around the world.
Those Democratic lawmakers in attendance for Trump’s remarks are set to use their invited guests to highlight policies the president is unlikely to address.
More than a dozen survivors of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein will be in attendance, as the president continues to face bipartisan rebukes for his handling of the Epstein investigation and the Justice Department’s haphazard release of related files.
And several U.S. citizens detained by or otherwise caught up in ICE immigration enforcement activities will similarly be in attendance, serving to highlight what Democrats argue is an illegal use of federal law enforcement in U.S. cities.
And yet, several dozen Democratic lawmakers have affirmatively chosen not to attend Trump’s address. Some, like Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, have framed their absence as a “boycott,” so as not to “normalize Donald Trump's actions and his abuse of the presidency.”
Others will participate in one of a series of counter-programming events hosted around the speech, including one organized by the progressive group MoveOn and another coordinated by a series of left-leaning independent journalists.
One thing both parties can agree on? It's going to be a late night.
Trump’s remarks are set to start around 9pm, and the president, already known for long speeches, has said this one could be particularly lengthy.
“It's going to be a long speech because we have a lot to talk about,” Trump told reporters Monday.
