Trump’s big speech will be delivered to a changed nation and Congress he has sidelined – The Mercury News
By LISA MASCROThe Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump will stand before Congress on Tuesday to deliver the annual State of the Union address to a nation suddenly transformed.
One year into office, Trump has emerged as a president who defies expectations. He has created an emotional agenda, raising priorities at home, breaking alliances abroad and challenging the nation’s basic system of checks and balances. Two Americans were killed by federal agents while protesting the Trump administration’s attacks and mass deportations.
As lawmakers sit in the House hearing Trump’s plan for next year, this time in Congress, which has been sidelined because of his broad reach, the Republican president is overriding his slim GOP majority to amass massive power.
“It’s crazy,” said Nancy Henderson Korpi, a retiree in northern Minnesota who joined an invisible protest group and plans to watch the speech from home. “But what worries me the most is that Congress just gave up their power.”
He said, “We can make meaningful decisions and reforms if Congress does its job.”
The state of the union is shaky
The country is at a crossroads, celebrating its 250th anniversary while experiencing the most significant changes in its politics, policies and general attitudes to the lives of many Americans.
The president pushed his agenda through Congress when he needed to — often pressuring lawmakers by phone during cliffhanger votes — but he often avoided the generous and outlandish take on the legislative process that his party and the Democratic opposition often meet.
Trump’s signature legislation so far is the GOP’s biggest tax cut bill, with its new child savings accounts, no tax on tips and other special deductions, and drastic cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance. It also paid more than $170 billion to Homeland Security for his deportation.
But the GOP-led Congress has stood firm as Trump wields more power through executive actions, many of which are being challenged in court, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to push his agenda.
“Recovering lost power is not an easy thing in our constitution,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a Supreme Court ruling criticizing Trump’s tax policy on Friday.
Gorsuch said that without the court intervening on larger questions, “Our system of separate powers and checks and balances threatens to provide an opportunity for continued and permanent power to be held in the hands of one person.”
Trump is going it alone, with or without Congress
From cutting federal staff to ramping up the childhood immunization program to invading Venezuela and kidnapping that country’s president, Trump’s reach has seemed limitless.
His administration launched investigations into potential political enemies, put his name on historic buildings, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and perhaps openly rounded up people and turned warehouses into detention centers for deportation.
At almost every step of the way, there were times when Congress could have intervened but didn’t.
Democrats, in the minority, often try to push back, including stopping regular funding for Homeland Security unless there are restrictions on immigration.
But Republicans believe the country elected the president and handed over control of their congressional party to his agenda, according to a senior GOP leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the changes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said Trump would be the “most important” president of the modern era.
Democrats plan to boycott the speech — scheduled for 6 p.m. Pacific time — or remain silent.
“The state of the union is deteriorating,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Congress asserts itself, sometimes
There have been times when Congress held its own against the White House, but it was rare – as in the high bipartisan rise from Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., to force the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, over the objections of Johnson and the GOP leadership.
Congressional power shifts often result from a few renegade Republicans joining the majority of Democrats to check on the president, such as when the House voted to block Trump’s tariffs on Canada. The Senate advanced a war-power resolution to stop fighting in Venezuela without congressional approval, but backed off after Trump intervened.
Those were largely symbolic votes, because Congress would not have the numbers to overcome any expected Trump veto.
Often, Congress has given Trump an accommodation, by revoking already authorized bipartisan funding for USAID foreign aid or public broadcasting or failing to stop US military strikes on suspected drug-trafficking boats that killed two survivors in the Caribbean. When Trump issued Day One pardons to about 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 at the Capitol, Republicans in Congress did not object.
And as Trump’s Department of Labor and billionaire Elon Musk begin firing government workers, GOP lawmakers have signed off on forming their own DOGE caucus on Capitol Hill.
“The key question for us is whether the public understands what’s at stake,” said Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a non-profit organization focused on public administration and democracy. “We are in the midst of the most important changes in our government and our public servants in our history as a country.”
He said about 300,000 government employees were being fired or moving on, and 100,000 were being rehired or rehired, mostly to Homeland Security.
Checks and balances are challenged
In courts across the country, lawsuits are being filed against the administration at record levels, as Congress has “tied the wheel,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which has filed more than 150 lawsuits against the administration, part of the largest legal effort against the executive branch in American history.
But the justice system has been under pressure, and the White House has not always complied with court rulings. GOP lawmakers have joined Trump’s criticism of the courts, displaying outside their offices posters of judges they want to impeach.
The next big test will be over the citizenship-certification ballot bill that Trump is seeking before the midterm elections.
The House passed the SAVE America Act, which would require birth certificates or passports to register to vote in federal elections and photo ID at polling places. Supporters say it’s necessary to fight fraud, while critics say it will keep millions of Americans from voting because they don’t have readily available citizenship papers.
The Senate has a majority to pass the measure but not the 60 votes needed to overcome an expected Democratic-led filibuster.
Trump has vowed to act if Congress fails to pass the law.
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