What to Watch For in Trump's Abnormal, Authoritarian Address to Congress

Trump gives the speech amidst mounting political challenges and sinking poll numbers

Let me guess… you don’t want to watch Donald Trump’s speech tonight. I can hardly blame you. I don’t want to watch it either. The good news? You don’t have to!

I will watch it for you and give you the high — and more likely, low — lights.

Because I made a series of ill-fated career decisions, I am required by professional obligation to consider, watch, podcast about, and write a newsletter concerning Trump’s speech.

This speech isn’t technically a “State of the Union.” Presidents don’t give the official constitutionally-mandated report on the State of the Union until their second year. It’s a joint address to Congress, but it will be covered — and watched — with all of the attention, pomp and circumstance of a State of the Union. Networks plan to air the speech in primetime. This speech will certainly be Trump’s biggest audience for any speech this year — and maybe for the balance for his presidency. State of the Union/joint address ratings tend to decline over the course of a president’s term.

So, this speech is unfortunately a big deal. It will relay to us how Trump views his first month in office, whether he is at all aware of his political vulnerabilities, and his plans for the rest of the year.

With that in mind, here are some of my questions as I tune in for many of you tonight (You’re welcome).

1. How Many People Will Watch?

During Trump’s first term, his State of the Union addresses drew relatively big audiences. More than 47 million people tuned into Trump’s 2017 joint address. This was more than all but one of Obama’s addresses and significantly higher than all of Biden’s. To put this in perspective, approximately 27 million people watched. I am curious about the numbers because it will decide whether the public is paying any attention to the insanity happening in Washington. After the election, a lot of people tuned out of politics due to disinterest or devastation. Ratings for CNN and MSNBC plummeted. Since the inauguration, ratings have bounced back, but nowhere near where they were at this point in 2017 after Trump’s first win. Political junkies dialed back in (as evidenced by the thousands of new Message Box subscribers in the last six weeks). The question is whether anyone else is paying attention to the havoc being wreaked by Trump and Musk.

2. Is Trump Aware of His Biggest Weakness?

Trump spent the entire campaign focused on two issues — immigration and inflation. Since being sworn in, Trump has spent much of his time on the former and almost none of the latter. The Trump Administration loves to tout their deportation numbers and various statistics about reductions in border crossings. The Secretary of Homeland Security regularly does photo-ops on deportation raids. They are even spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a taxpayer-funded political ad promoting Trump’s immigration “accomplishments.”

Trump has barely mentioned rising prices since becoming president. He’s implemented no policy initiatives or message events on the topic. He hasn’t even addressed the meteoric rise in egg prices due to the Avian Flu epidemic. Voters are noticing. These two graphs from the latest CBS News/YouGov poll show the massive disparity between what voters want Trump to focus on and what they believe is his current focus.

In more normal times, this sort of inattention to the most critical issue would be a political death rattle. It’s already taking a toll on his approval rating with several polls showing Trump in negative territory.

3. Does Trump Want to Pass Any Bills Through Congress?

In the traditional course of business, tomorrow night’s speech would lay out the core elements of the president’s legislative agenda and then use the bully pulpit to exhort Congress to act.

Thus far, Trump has shown little to no interest in the minutia of passing bills. Sure, he has governed with a flurry of executive orders, enacted sweeping changes to foreign policy, and dispatched a possibly illegal and unconstitutional wrecking ball throughout the federal government. But to make lasting changes on immigration, energy, and tax policy, Trump needs Congress to pass bills. If Trump and the Republicans do not pass a tax bill, most Americans will have their taxes go up at the end of the year.

The “big beautiful bill” — as Trump refers to it — is already in trouble. The bill cuts nearly a trillion dollars from Medicaid. Republicans in purple districts oppose the cuts while members of the Freedom Caucus want to cut more. With extraordinarily narrow margins, Trump has no room to spare. Passing these bills will take a herculean effort. I’m curious whether the president and his team get that or if Trump would rather spend the evening basking in the applause of his most ardent fans (I think we know the answer to this).

4. The Most Important Question

These are the questions one would ask about a “normal” joint address from a “normal” president, but they ignore the elephant in the room. What’s happening in Washington, DC right now is not normal. The change brought in the last six weeks is not typical of a change in administration.

From appointing wholly unqualified political hacks to lead the FBI to putting an anti-vaxxer in charge of vaccine policy to giving the world’s richest man the authority to unilaterally shut down government agencies to siding with Russia over our allies, Trump is headed down a perilous path.

Muscle memory implores us to talk about Trump like a slightly more extreme version of a “normal” president. The press covering Trump and the Democrats plotting the response often lack the vocabulary and the imagination to describe reality.

The most critical question is whether tomorrow night — from the press coverage to the Democratic response — will further normalize what is happening in Washington.

I sure as hell hope not, but I’m not optimistic.