President Donald Trump is set to deliver remarks to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, marking his first major speech since his inauguration in January.
Trump’s remarks come as his promised 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada go into effect, sparking fears of a North American trade war.
Trump has also been under scrutiny over his dramatic clash with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and for Elon Musk’s continued efforts to slash federal funding via the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
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JD Vance Denies Trashing U.K., France Over Ukraine Peacekeeping Plan
Vice President JD Vance moved to head off a diplomatic incident after appearing to insult the U.K. and France over their efforts to bring peace to Ukraine.
Vance sparked a backlash after suggesting on Fox News Monday that a proposed U.K.-French led European peacekeeping force would be far less effective than Trump’s proposed minerals deal between the U.S. and Ukraine.
Vance said: “If you want real security guarantees, if you want to actually ensure that Vladimir Putin does not invade Ukraine again, the very best security guarantee is to give Americans economic upside in the future of Ukraine.”
“That is a way better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years,” he added
On Tuesday morning, Vance took to X to insist it was “absurdly dishonest” to suggest his criticism was aimed at Britain or France.
“I don’t even mention the U.K. or France in the clip, both of whom have fought bravely alongside the U.S. over the last 20 years, and beyond,” he wrote.
But he then took a swipe at unnamed countries also attempting to find a way forward for Ukraine following America’s abdication.
Vance wrote: “But let’s be direct: there are many countries who are volunteering (privately or publicly) support who have neither the battlefield experience nor the military equipment to do anything meaningful.”
Melania Trump’s Congressional Guests To Spotlight ‘Disaster Wrought’ By Biden Administration
The White House has identified 15 guests who will accompany first lady Melania Trump to President Trump’s Joint Session of Congress on Tuesday.
The guests are labeled as “everyday Americans” who have “incredible stories about the disaster wrought by the previous administration and the historic achievements President Trump has already enacted to usher in the Golden Age of America.”
The guests include a 15-year-old victim of online bullying; the family of a firefighter fatally shot during a Trump campaign rally last July; the window of a slain NYPD officer; a history teacher who was imprisoned in Russia; the family of slain nursing student Laken Riley; a mother who claims her child “socially transitioned” to male with the help of their school; and a U.S. Border Patrol agent, the White House said.
Trump Set For Victory Lap In Congress Even As He Usurps Its Power
WASHINGTON – The first month of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House has been a nonstop assault on the authority of Congress as an equal branch of government, with the president asserting unprecedented control over lawmakers’ power to control spending.
While Democrats have cried foul, filing numerous lawsuits that are slowly making their way through the courts, Republicans have by and large cheered his efforts to accomplish what they’ve long failed to do through legislative means: eliminate large swaths of the federal government. On Tuesday, they’ll stand and clap for him some more when he addresses a joint session of Congress for the first time as the 47th president of the United States.
Read more here.
Democrats To Bring Fired Federal Workers To Trump’s State Of The Union
When Trump delivers his address on Capitol Hill Tuesday night, he’ll see some workers in the audience who just lost their jobs because of him.
Several Democratic lawmakers have said they plan to bring fired federal employees as their guests to the Capitol for Trump’s address. The move is meant to highlight the sloppiness and cruelty of the administration’s sweeping cuts to the federal workforce led by Elon Musk, the head of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
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