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    Democrats are acting sedate and silent during Trump’s worst excesses | Moira Donegan

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    What was the point of Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday night? The annual speech – called the “State of the Union” address in every year except the one just after the president’s ascent to office – has long been a somewhat outdated bit of political theater, an event light on policy specifics and heavy on messaging in an era in which political messaging’s most effective venues have long since moved online.It’s perhaps even less clear what a speech to Congress is supposed to mean for this president, who has proven himself so indifferent to constitutional limits on his power – or for this Congress, which has shown itself so willing to abdicate its own constitutional responsibilities. It seems, like so many of the formalities of American politics do now, a bit like a phantom limb: something that Americans keep feeling for long after it has been excised. How long will it be, one wonders, until everyone stops bothering to go through the motions?But Trump, for one, seems to delight in any opportunity to make a spectacle of himself. On Tuesday, with a captive audience of all of Congress, many military leaders, about half of the US supreme court, and large swaths of the American public, he set about indulging all of his worst whims and lowest impulses. He repeatedly and extensively insulted his predecessor, the former president Joe Biden, by name and in strong terms. He relitigated old grievances, from his many prosecutions to his annoyance that not everyone likes him. He threatened the sovereignty of Panama and Greenland, went into extended discussions of the careers of various transgender athletes, boasted of ending “the tyranny of diversity, equity and inclusion” and removing “the poison of critical race theory”, and reminded his audience that he had renamed the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America”. Occasionally, the gathered Republicans in the crowd would burst into grunting chants of “USA! USA!” It was worse than merely vulgar. It was stupid.Trump boasted of the rapid pursuit of his agenda in the weeks since he returned to power, declaring that the US was entering its “greatest, most successful era” and that “our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never seen, perhaps never will see”. In fact, the country is on the verge of an economic recession. Thousands of federal workers have been laid off, and Trump’s hefty tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners – namely Canada, Mexico and China – sent the stock market into a freefall earlier that day. In the past, Trump has got cold feet, and backed off his tariff threats. On stage in the House chamber, he doubled down on them, declaring that he would pursue his trade wars, and acknowledging: “There will be a little disturbance.”Trump spoke intensely and at length about his culture war grievances, touting his executive orders declaring English to be the United States’ official language and that the federal government would recognize “only two genders”. “Our country will be woke no longer,” he said.He also touted his record on immigration, boasting of his administration’s mass deportation plans and the decreased number of migrants and asylum seekers at the southern border. He dwelt at length on stories of violence by undocumented immigrants, pointing to the families of murdered Americans in the crowd and describing undocumented people as “savages”. Alluding to a fringe legal theory that could be deployed to support his unconstitutional effort to end birthright citizenship, he referred to the immigrant population as an “occupation”, and cast his own mass deportation effort as something like the expulsion of an invading army – which sounds a lot more noble than the chaotic and brutal humiliations and human rights abuses that have actually taken place as a part of Trump’s deportation effort.In a section on economic issues, he blamed Biden, specifically, for the price of eggs, which have soared in some places to nearly $20 a dozen. (According to reporting from NPR, some of Trump’s advisers have asked him to talk more about egg prices, which were a repeated talking point during his campaign but which he has mentioned rarely since taking office, though prices continue to climb.) He also repeated false claims by Elon Musk’s extra-constitutional government-slashing group, the “department of government efficiency”, that Musk’s band of sycophantic teenagers who are leading the decimation of government services have found “hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud and waste” in Musk-targeted programs, such as social security. They have not.In fact, he talked about Biden a lot. At times, when he seemed to get distracted or lose his place in the speech, Trump appeared to insert insults towards Biden almost as filler. “And think of where we were with Joe Biden,” he said, in one such non-sequitur. “Biden took us very low, the lowest we have ever been.” Other digressions included complaints about his own various grievances and mistreatment. “Nobody gets treated worse than I do online, nobody,” he said once, after a brief discussion of a bill to combat revenge porn.Where were the Democrats during all this? Mostly, they were quiet. A few high-profile Democratic leaders, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the senator Patty Murray, skipped the speech. Others stayed and sat, sedate. Reportedly, word had gone out from Democratic leadership that party members should have a “dignified” presence at the speech, neither seizing the spotlight nor protesting against Trump out loud. The result was underwhelming.Democrats, who have told their voters that Trump represents a threat to democracy, sat silently, holding up ping-pong paddles printed with the word “false”. In an apparent nod to women’s eroded rights, some of them wore pink. Trump, for his part, used their silent presence to his advantage, turning them into props. Even if he cured a terrible disease, he jeered at the Democrats: “They will not stand, they will not jeer, they will not clap.” In fact, Trump has frozen virtually all federal funding of research into those terrible diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer’s, that American scientists were once working to cure. An opposition worth the name could have pointed that out; the one we have raised their ping-pong paddles a little higher.Trump is not the figure he used to be. He no longer seems to be quite in control of his own administration: he has delegated most spending policy to Musk, and has busied himself instead merely with turning the federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI and the broader justice department, into instruments of his petty revenge. He’s not funny any more. But he is also more comfortable in power: even less deferential to formality, even less reverent towards his office, even more inclined to turn the presidency into what was always his greatest passion, a TV show.In Trump’s hands, an old State of the Union convention – pointing out citizens who had been brought to Congress as special guests – was given a new twist: Trump set the people up for surprises. One child, a 13-year-old aspiring police officer with cancer, was gifted with an honorary membership in the Secret Service; the cameras on him, his sunken eyes widened with surprise. A teenager who aspired to go to West Point stood up to wave to the crowd, and was told by Trump himself that he’d gotten in; his jaw momentarily hung open. The genre was the gameshow, the carnivalesque kind where nobodies see if they can catch some luck amid the random dispensation of gifts by the glamorous and benevolent host. Think of Oprah, in her decadent generosity, yelling: “You get a car!” In these moments, Trump seemed to be having fun. At least somebody is.

    Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump turns Congress speech into a sordid campaign rally, igniting a Democrat fightback

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      Well, at least he didn’t give a Nazi salute, declare war on Canada or pull the plug on Nato. You never know these days. But this was the night that Donald Trump finally turned the once reverential occasion of a speech to Congress into just another sordid campaign rally.Deigning to address the branch of government he has so comprehensively sidelined in his first six weeks in office, Trump went off script and went long (a record 100 minutes). He lied, he weaved, demonised immigrants, he sold his economy as the greatest ever, he played the victim, he praised Elon Musk, he lambasted Joe Biden, he repeated himself and he lied some more.And how Republican senators and representatives lapped it all up. They leaped to their feet countless times, clapping and cheering, shouting, “Yes!” and “Thank you!”, chanting, “USA! USA! USA!” and “Trump! Trump! Trump!” and “Fight! Fight! Fight!”Among them was congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, sporting a red “Trump was right about everything” cap and clutching a mini-Stars and Stripes as if listening to him in a sports arena on the campaign trail.But this was a Trump rally with a difference, putting all the tensions and faultlines and sickness of the American body politic on full display. Half the chamber was made up of Democrats, forced to sit and have their noses rubbed in the dirt like Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at last week’s Oval Office shakedown.They looked grim, they looked glum, they looked as if they were reliving the 5 November election nightmare all over again. More than a dozen Democratic women wore pink in protest. When Trump entered, Democrat Melanie Stansbury held up a sign that said, “This is NOT Normal,” until Republican Lance Gooden across the aisle, grabbed sign out of her hand and tossed it in the air.Once Trump got going, several Democrats held up round black signs that said, “Protect veterans”, “Save Medicaid” and “Musk steals”, and when flipped around, the signs said “False” on the back, so they could factcheck Trump instantly (those arms must have got tired).Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib began with a piece of paper on which “That’s a lie” was handwritten but later upgraded to a mini-white board that said at various points: “That’s a lie!”, “You cut cancer research”, “What about the immigrants that worked for you?”, and “Cut Elon, NOT Social Security.”Most spectacularly, when Trump began his speech by declaring that the presidential election of 5 November “was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades,”Republicans quickly jumped to their feet with chants of “USA! USA!”, while congressman Al Green rose, cane aloft, and shouted, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid!”, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to order the House serjeant at arms to escort him from the chamber. Republicans cheered and shouted “Get out!” and “Na na na na … goodbye!”‘It’s a lie!’ shout DemocratsRarely has the divide across the aisle been so bitter and glaring. It was hard to believe that, when Trump first stood on this spot eight years ago, he repeatedly called for unity, proclaiming: “We all bleed the same blood. We all salute the same great American flag. And we all are made by the same God.”There was none of that in 2025. These are the days of miracles and thunder, of owning the libs and perhaps owning chunks of the world too. Trump described his own presidency as the most successful in history, beating George Washington into second, and Biden’s as the worst ever.Then he whined: “I look at the Democrats in front of me and I realise there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud – nothing I can do.“I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements.”Poor unloved, unappreciated Donald. But Speaker Johnson and vice-president JD Vance giggled like mischievous schoolboys. Republicans again stood to applaud and Democrats remain riveted to their seats in silence.The president went on to trumpet his “department of government efficiency” and all heads turned to look at Elon Musk, wearing a suit, in the public gallery. Republicans again hollered in praise as Musk, nodding and saluting, milked it for all it was worth.But later, when Trump declared that “the days of being ruled by unelected bureaucrats is over”, some Democrats laughed, stood up and pointed at the tech oligarch who is taking a chainsaw to the federal government.Just as at a rally, Trump did the weave, talking at length about illegal immigration and transgender children, then circling back later to do it all again. Congressman Jamie Raskin could be seen making a looping gesture as if to say: this is getting repetitive.An exultant, ego-driven Trump boasted: “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned that all we really needed was a new president.”Among the senators, Chuck Schumer stared down at his phone. Dick Durbin looked bewildered. Amy Klobuchar grimaced. Cory Booker seemed crestfallen – his belief in the better angels of our nature had been mugged by reality.As the night wore on, several Democrats walked out in protest, some revealing shirts that read “Resist” on the back. One shirt said, “No kings live here”; another said, “President Musk”.The clashes continued. When Trump repeated a false claim that millions of dead people over 100 years old are receiving social security payments, Democrats shouted, “It’s a lie!”When Trump admitted “there will be a little disturbance” from tariffs but “we’re OK with that”, a Democrat objected: “No, we’re not!” A Republican retorted loudly: “We’re good, we’re good.”When Trump declared “we are also once again giving our police officers the support, protection and respect they so dearly deserve”, several Democrats yelled back, “January 6!”When Trump said the US needs Greenland for national security, adding that “One way or the other, we’re gonna get it,” a Democrat shouted, “Not a king!”But when, with British ambassador Peter Mandelson looking on, the president remarked on how the US had sent billions of military aid to Ukraine, it was Democrats who started clapping, while the party of cold war warrior Ronald Reagan sat on its hands.Trump asked sarcastically: “You want to keep it going another five years?” Then he spotted Senator Elizabeth Warren and said mockingly, “Yeah, Pocahontas says yes.” Warren fought hard to retain a cold smile as she continued to applaud.Yet still Trump kept going, delivering a speech that somehow managed to be both menacing and boring at the same time, spending less than two minutes on inflation and prices, the issue that was arguably central to his election. At one point there was even a yawn on the Republican side from congresswoman Nancy Mace. People have been primaried for less.When it was over, however, Mace went up to him and gushed: “Best speech ever!” Greene was not far behind with: “Mr President, that was a great speech!” Other voices chimed in: “Home run!”, “Slam dunk!”, “You rocked it, Mr President.”By then the Democrats had bolted for the door, having metaphorically done what Nancy Pelosi did five years ago when she tore up Trump speech’s in this chamber. They had given hope to the resistance and shown the world what they are against. Now can they show the world what they are for? More

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      ‘Resist’ shirts and ‘a little disturbance’: key takeaways from Trump’s Congress speech

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      Donald Trump delivered a divisive, falsehood-laden speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, touting the successes of his first weeks back in office even as his tariff policies have rattled global markets and his criticism of Ukraine has stoked backlash among European allies.Addressing lawmakers for roughly an hour and a half in the longest such speech to a joint session, the president’s sweeping proclamations and biting attacks on Joe Biden prompted many Democrats to walk out of the House chamber as Republicans offered Trump one standing ovation after another.Here are the key takeaways from Trump’s address to Congress:1. Democrats voiced their discontent, with one House member even being removed from the chamberAs Trump kicked off his speech, he boasted about his electoral victory over Kamala Harris in November, describing his win as “a mandate like has not been seen in many decades”. Trump won the popular vote by 1.5 points last year, whereas Biden won it by 4.5 points in 2020. Trump’s electoral college vote count of 312 surpassed Biden’s vote count of 306 in 2020, but Barack Obama secured 332 electoral votes in 2012.Trump’s comment struck a nerve with with Representative Al Green, a Democrat of Texas, who began shouting at the president. “You don’t have a mandate,” waving his cane as he spoke.The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, then warned Green to “uphold and maintain decorum”. When Green continued shouting, Johnson instructed the sergeant at arms to remove him from the chamber.More Democrats voluntarily walked out of Trump’s speech as it went on, with some of them wearing black shirts bearing the word “resist”. Others displayed panels that read “false” and “save Medicaid” as Trump spoke.2. Trump doubled down on his divisive agenda and mocked BidenEchoing some of his most controversial rhetoric on the campaign trail, Trump warned about the dangers of “transgender ideology” and declared: “Our country will be woke no longer.”Trump repeatedly attacked his predecessor, labeling Joe Biden “the worst president in American history”. When Trump spotted Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat of Massachusetts, in the crowd, he again deployed his derogatory nickname of “Pocahontas” against her.Trump also applauded the work of Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge), even as the billionaire’s efforts have sparked protests across the country amid layoffs of federal workers.“He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this. He didn’t need this,” Trump said of Musk. Pointing to Democrats in the audience, Trump added: “Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it. I believe they just don’t want to admit that.”3. Trump downplayed the risks of his tariffs despite warning signs in the marketsOne of the most noteworthy moments came when the president defended his trade agenda, just hours after Canada and China announced retaliatory measures after Trump moved forward with heightened tariffs against the two countries and Mexico.“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again, and it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” Trump said. “There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that.”Trump’s escalating trade war has already contributed to wiping out all of the gains since election day for the S&P 500, and US retail giants have warned consumers to brace for price hikes because of the tariffs on Mexican imports.4. Trump called for an end to the war in Ukraine after his spat with ZelenskyyJust days after he and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, exchanged heated barbs in the Oval Office, Trump reiterated his desire to bring about an end to the war.Trump said he received a letter from Zelenskyy earlier on Tuesday, which seemed to align with the Ukrainian leader’s public statement that he and his team “stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts”.“I appreciate that he sent this letter,” Trump said. “Simultaneously we’ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace.”5. Trump repeated thoroughly debunked claimsTrump shared claims about the economy, social security and foreign assistance that have already been fact-checked and found to be false.The president claimed to have inherited “an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare” from the Biden administration. When Biden left office in January, inflation had fallen steeply from its peak in June 2022, and real gross domestic product consistently exceeded expectations in 2023 and 2024.Trump also repeated Musk’s incorrect claims that millions of dead Americans continue to receive social security benefits, pointing to the fact that at least one alleged recipient appeared to be 150 years old. But that data point reflects a well known flaw in the social security administration’s system in that it does not accurately track death records. A 2015 report found that only 13 people who had reached the age of 112 were receiving social security payments.6. Trump called for repealing a bipartisan bill signed by BidenRepublicans offered Trump repeated standing ovations throughout his address, even as the president called for repealing a bill that a number of them supported.“Your Chips Act is a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said. “You should get rid of the Chip[s] Act, and whatever is leftover, Mr Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to,” Trump said.Signed into law by Biden in 2022, the Chips and Science Act has spurred investment in new semiconductor manufacturing sites in the US, and the bill was supported by 17 Senate Republicans and 24 House Republicans. And yet, Johnson and fellow Republicans still stood to applaud the suggestion. More

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      As Republicans thunderously applauded and Democrats walked out in droves, Trump’s Congress speech showcased the US divide | Lloyd Green

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      Donald Trump is busy while the world around him is mired in chaos. Six weeks into his second term, he has reversed the course of US policy towards Ukraine, imposed tariffs on China, Canada and Mexico, and delegated the task of slashing government to Elon Musk. The stock market swoons.Recession and stagflation are no longer hypotheticals. The term “trade war” fills the headlines. The Dow sits hundreds of points below where it stood on Inauguration Day. Trump’s second term is already consequential and controversial.In the opening words of his speech to a joint session of Congress, he proclaimed that America was back, that the country’s golden age lay ahead, and that “momentum” had returned. He spoke for nearly two hours, the longest speech to Congress ever. Trump was nakedly partisan, the reception in the House chamber was raucous.Republicans thunderously applauded while Democrats delivered a chorus of catcalls. Early on, Speaker Mike Johnson demanded order, and called the sergeant-at-arms to remove Al Green, a Texas Democrat, from the hall. Democrats walked out in droves. The speech showcased the American divide.Throughout the night, Trump made Joe Biden his foil and punching bag. He labeled his predecessor the worst president in American history, lambasting his policies a disaster. Trump also took congressional Democrats to task for their refusal to stand or applaud during his speech. He continues to yearn for adulation.On that note, he compared himself as second to only George Washington, the first president. As ever, self-deprecation and modesty were nowhere to be found.Immigration and social issues policy took pride of place. Here, the speech sounded like a continuation of the fall campaign. Trump pointed to quiet at the southern border and read a laundry list of changes implemented by his administration.He bragged of making English the official language of the US, abolishing DEI in and out of government, and barring transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. Said differently, his campaign slogan, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you”, continues to retain its salience.Trump remains a culture warrior, a tack that twice led him to the White House. Throughout the evening, he returned to immigration as a rhetorical touchstone. He also attacked street gangs, urban crime and street violence. For the Democrats to regain competitive political footing, they will need to reconcile themselves to the reality that mass immigration is unpopular, that being tough on crime is a winner, and that the language of “wokeness” goes no further than the faculty lounge.Past demands to defund the police will likely haunt the party for the foreseeable future. The fact that Trump repeated his call for an immigration gold card, with citizenship sold to Russian oligarchs at $5m a pop, does not detract from the potency of immigration as an issue.By the numbers, nearly half the US supports building a wall along the entire US-Mexico border. At the same time, support for conferring legal status to undocumented or illegal immigrants brought to the US as children declines.As to be expected, Trump ignored the stock market drop and instead pointed to a decline of interest rates. Whether the latter is a harbinger of a decline in inflation, a slowing economy, or both, remains to be seen. He repeated his call to “drill, baby, drill”. He also gave Elon Musk, his largest campaign donor and the head of Doge, star treatment and a shout-out.Foreign policy occupied little space. Trump repeated his threat toward Denmark over Greenland. “I think we’re going to get it – one way or the other, we’re going to get it.” He again staked a US claim to Panama. Ukraine came late, almost as an afterthought.Despite market turmoil, “tariffs” remained a beautiful word in the Trumpian lexicon. On Tuesday night, he announced that US-imposed reciprocal tariffs will kick in on 2 April, less than a month away. Much can go wrong between now and then.The possibility of averting a trade war does not appear to have lessened during the course of the speech. He said tariffs are about the “soul” of the country while acknowledging that they may bring temporary dislocation. Still, he didn’t seem all that bothered.The speech won’t unite a nation, but it will rally the Republican base. More

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      Trump declares administration ‘just getting started’ in address to Congress

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      Donald Trump on Tuesday declared that his administration was “just getting started”, boasting in a marathon address to Congress that his efforts to slash the size of the federal workforce, reorient US foreign policy and escalate a risky trade war marked the beginning of the “most thrilling days in the history of our country” as Democratic lawmakers protested with placards that read “lies” and “false”.“America is back,” Trump declared, opening the his primetime speech to a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term and the longest in American history. Republicans broke into a boisterous chant of “USA”.Throughout the prime-time address, which lasted about one hour and 40 minutes, a jocular Trump touted his administration’s “swift and unrelenting action” and praised the work of his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, who has led his administration’s efforts to dramatically downsize the federal government through his so-called “department of government efficiency”. “Thank you, Elon,” Trump said, gesturing to Musk, who was seated in the House gallery overlooking the chamber where Democrats waved paddles that read “Musk steals”.Trump seized the high-profile moment to defend his administration’s action during the first weeks of his return to power, including, according to his tally, nearly 100 executive orders and more than 400 executive actions.“The people elected me to do the job, and I am doing it,” he said, making no mention of the legal challenges that have stalled many of his actions and deepening fears that his trade war will plunge the country into economic turmoil.Trump also expanded on his “America First” foreign policy vision, just days after a dramatic Oval Office meeting with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, spiraled out of control as Trump and JD Vance berated him over a perceived lack of respect. During his remarks, Trump recited from a letter Zelenskyy shared earlier in the day, indicating that he was ready to return to the negotiating table to end Russia’s three-year war. The US had simultaneously received “strong signals” from Russia that Moscow is “ready for peace,” Trump said. “Wouldn’t that be beautiful?”Elsewhere, Trump envisioned the US expanding. He declared that his administration was in the process of “reclaiming the Panama Canal” and repeated his threat to take control of Greenland: “One way or the other, we’re going to get it.”With performative flair, Trump offered a sampling of initiatives he said Musk’s team had identified as wasteful, among them the creation of an Arab Sesame Street, “making mice transgender” and promoting LGBTQ+ rights in Lesotho, the African country he said “nobody has ever heard of”.“This is real,” he exclaimed, drawing laughs from half of the chamber. But Trump’s claim that Musk’s cost-cutting efforts had identified “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud”. But Trump’s estimate vastly overstates the savings Doge says it has generated, which itself is based on accounting that multiple reports have found is riddled with errors and distortions.Early in the night, as Trump bragged about the size of his electoral college and popular vote victory – “a map that reads almost completely red for Republican” – Democrats heckled and booed, prompting House Speaker Mike Johnson to bang his gavel and demand decorum. “You don’t have a mandate,” shouted Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas. When the congressman, who last month filed articles of impeachment against Trump, refused to be seated, the Speaker ordered him removed from the chamber.View image in fullscreenTrump claimed a mandate for “bold and profound change”, though his 1.5 point popular vote was the smallest margin of victory for any successful presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1968.Trump’s address to Congress came just hours after he launched a trade war against three of its top trading partners that sent financial markets spiraling and raised fresh concerns of inflation. Just after midnight on Tuesday, the US slapped 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and doubled to 20% the levy he imposed on Chinese products last month. Trump vowed a tit-for-tat retaliation – “whatever they tariff us, we tariff them” – and insisted the new levies would grow the economy and create jobs, even as economists warn the polices could harm consumers and make inflation worse.“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again,” Trump said, adding a caveat: “There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much.”New tariffs would take effect on 2 April, Trump said, one day later than he preferred to ensure the announcement wasn’t mistaken for an April Fools joke. However, he conceded that there may be “a little bit of an adjustment period”.He blamed the soaring price of eggs on his predecessor’s energy policies while pledging his “National ENERGY Emergency” would help usher in a new era of domestic drilling.In accordance with tradition, Trump’s arrival in the chamber was announced by the sergeant-at-arms. As he walked to the dais, Trump appeared to revel in the cacophonous applause of Congressional Republicans, who have declined to rein in the president even as he threatens their authority as an independent branch of government.Seated behind the president, Vance and Johnson could barely contain their glee, as they stood to applaud Trump’s every promise, boast and threat.Past presidents have used the first major speech as an opportunity to reach across party lines and offer areas of common ground. Trump did the opposite. He taunted his political foes, blaming his predecessor for the price of eggs and claiming his victory ushered in a wave of tech investments that wouldn’t have happened if Kamala Harris had won the election. At one point he called Joe Biden the “worst president in American history,” drawing applause from Republicans.“Why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America,” Trump chided stone-faced Democrats. At least a handful of Democrats walked out of the speech early.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump celebrated his clampdown on the US immigration and asylum system and called on the Republican-led Congress to deliver additional federal funding to expand his border crackdown and extend his first-term tax cuts. Some Democrats held signs that said “Save Medicaid” to highlight the social safety net programs that could be at risk under a Republican budget blueprint to deliver Trump’s sprawling agenda.The president also ticked through many of his controversial actions, from renaming the Gulf of Mexico to making English the country’s official language, and banning trans women from women’s sports.“Our country will be woke no longer,” he declared.The speech was riddled with falsehoods and misleading claims, including a riff about millions of centenarians aged “110 to 119” receiving social security benefits.“We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby,” he quipped, referencing Robert F Kennedy Jr, his recently installed secretary of Health and Human Services, who leads the vaccine-skeptical “Make America Healthy Again” movement.The 15 guests who joined Melania Trump, the first lady, to watch the address included the widow and daughter of Corey Comperatore, the firefight who was killed at the campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, where Trump survived an assassination attempt as well as Marc Fogel, the American teacher that Trump helped free from a Russian prison last month. Other guests were intended to highlight the administrations’ policies, including family members of Americans killed by men in the US without legal status and anti-trans advocates.There were poignant moments. Trump paused his remarks to sign an executive order renaming a wildlife refuge near Houston for an animal-loving 12-year-old girl who prosecutors say was killed by two Venezuelan men in the country illegally. Turning to another guest, 13-year-old Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel, who was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018, Trump directed his Secret Service Director to make him an honorary US Secret Service agent.The House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, had encouraged his members to attend the address in order to demonstrate a “strong, determined and dignified Democratic presence in the chamber”. Many did attend, bringing fired federal workers and Americans who rely on social safety net programs threatened by Republicans’ budget proposal.But several Democrats chose to skip the event, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who instead shared her live reactions to the speech on the social media platform BlueSky. Ahead of the address, several Congressional Democrats and elected officials joined a virtual pre-buttal, “Calling BS,” to slam the Trump administration’s actions so far.“I don’t need to legitimize his lies by being in the room,” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the livestream, adding that Democrats need to make clear that the president is “transparently and brazenly lying to the American people”.View image in fullscreenSenator Ed Markey of Massachusetts said he plans to attend Trump’s speech as a way to show solidarity with Americans who are “rejecting Donald Trump’s hateful vising for our country”.Following Trump’s address, the newly elected Democratic senator Elissa Slotkin of battleground Michigan delivered her party’s formal rebuttal.“We’ve gone periods of political instability before,” she said. “And ultimately, we’ve chosen to keep changing this country for the better.” More

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      Democratic senator says democracy ‘at risk’ in rebuttal to Trump address

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      Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin followed Donald Trump’s record-long joint congressional address on Tuesday by focusing on the risk of a declining democracy, directly challenging citizens to take an active role in holding elected officials accountable – herself included.The first-term Democratic senator, who represents a state won by the president, explained how preserving democracy requires constant, active participation from voters.“Our democracy, our very system of government, has been the aspiration of the world, and right now it’s at risk,” Slotkin said in the official Democratic response. “It’s at risk when the president decides you can pick and choose what rules you want to follow, when he ignores court orders and the constitution itself, or when elected leaders stand by and just let it happen.”The first-term senator outlined a three-step approach for citizens: staying informed, monitoring elected representatives’ voting records, and actively organizing around issues that matter to any given person. She framed citizen oversight as “American as apple pie”.Slotkin fact-checked claims about Trump’s narrative on a booming economy, explaining that while the administration had touted overwhelming success, “the national debt is going up, not down”.The International Chamber of Commerce echoed those concerns earlier today, warning that the massive Trump-activated tariffs on Canada and Mexico risked triggering an economic downturn that could devastate the global economy that followed a mass tumble in the stock market. Slotkin added that risking cuts to social security and other critical programs were not the way to solve the national debt, or government efficiency either.“We need a more efficient government. You want to cut waste, I’ll help you do it. But change doesn’t need to be chaotic or make us less safe,” she said.Drawing from her national security background, Slotkin warned that democracies are fragile institutions that can “flicker out” without real, around-the-clock protection.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If previous generations had not fought for this democracy, where would we be today?” Slotkin said. More

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      Trump to defend trade war in major address to Congress tonight, top adviser says – live

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      Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Speaking to the former Trump advisor Larry Kudlow on Fox Business this hour, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said that talks with Canada and Mexico are ongoing, and an announcement on a middle ground solution on tariffs could be announced on Wednesday.“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians were on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better”, Lutnick said, “and the president is listening because you know he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s gonna work something out with them. It’s not gonna be a pause, none of that pause stuff. But I think he’s gonna figure out, ‘You do more, and I’ll meet you in the middle some way’. And we’re going to probably be announcing that tomorrow. So, somewhere in the middle will likely be the outcome. The president moving with the Canadians and Mexicans, but not all the way.”The Fox Business host Kudlow was the director of the National Economic Council during the first Trump administration.In addition to the mass firings of federal workers, the Trump administration’s plan to slash the federal government apparently includes a real estate fire sale.On its website, the General Services Administration, which manages federal properties, said it has identified 443 properties, totaling more than 80 million square feet that “are not core to government operations” now “designated for disposal.”The list of buildings to be put up for sale includes some of the most iconic properties in Washington, including the headquarters of the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Labor Department.Reuters reports that the agency said sales could potentially save more than $430 million in annual operating costs. The move could, however, put federal agencies at risk of exploitation by private landlords.The list also includes the Washington headquarters for the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, the American Red Cross building and the Office of Personnel Management. GSA’s own headquarters were also on the list.It also includes major office buildings in Atlanta, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Chicago, including the landmark Chicago Loop Post Office designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.The largest union of federal workers says that fired probationary employees must be reinstated, after the office of personnel management (OPM) amended a memo that had ordered their termination.“OPM’s revision of its Jan. 20 memo is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probationary employees – which aligns with Judge Alsup’s recent decision in our lawsuit challenging these illegal firings,” the American Federation of Government Employees president, Everett Kelley, said in a statement.“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired.”Here’s more about the Trump administration’s about-face:Democrats have seized on reports that congressman Richard Hudson, who leads the House GOP’s campaign operation, has asked lawmakers to stop holding in-person town halls after several incidences where constituents aired grievances over Donald Trump’s haphazard cuts to the federal government.Politico reports that Hudson made the request in a private meeting today, though lawmakers don’t have to follow it. In response, top Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to hide while supporting unpopular policies. Here’s minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      House Republicans have just been ordered to stop holding town hall meetings. They can run from their extreme agenda. We will never let them hide.
      And Katarina Flicker, press secretary for the House Majority Pac, which supports Democratic candidates:
      If you’re going to have the audacity to raise prices and rip away health care from millions of Americans, you should at least have the courage to face your constituents. House Republicans are cowards.
      The nation’s largest union of auto workers said it supported Donald Trump’s tariffs on major US trading partners and was working with its administration “to end the free trade disaster”.The statement from the United Auto Workers comes after it endorsed Joe Biden’s re-election bid and its president, Shawn Fain, campaigned for Democrats last year. The political winds have since shifted, and the UAW says it is in favor of Trump’s tariffs on Mexico and Canada as a way to undo the damage of free trade agreements that it claims undermined American manufacturing. From its statement:
      Tariffs are a powerful tool in the toolbox for undoing the injustice of anti-worker trade deals. We are glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.
      There’s been a lot of talk of these tariffs “disrupting” the economy. But if corporate America chooses to price-gouge the American consumer or attack the American worker because they don’t want to pay their fair share, corporate America bears the blame for that decision. The working class suffered all the pain of NAFTA, and we won’t suffer all the pain of undoing NAFTA. We want to see corporate America, from the auto industry and beyond, recommit to the working class that makes the products and generates the profits that keep this country running.
      The UAW is in active negotiations with the Trump Administration about their plans to end the free trade disaster. We look forward to working with the White House to shape the auto tariffs in April to benefit the working class. We want to see serious action that will incentivize companies to change their behavior, reinvest in America, and stop cheating the American worker, the American consumer, and the American taxpayer.
      Earlier in the day, the Detroit automakers’ trade association pleaded for exemptions from the tariffs and warned they would undermine US car manufacturers.Add Republican former senator Pat Toomey to those who don’t think much of Donald Trump’s levying of tariffs on Mexico and Canada.On X, Toomey, who represented Pennsylvania until 2023, said:
      With his multiple rounds of tariffs, and the inevitable retaliations, President Trump has wiped out all of the S & P 500 and Nasdaq 100 gains since his election. Next come higher prices and job losses.
      Democratic lawmakers are split over whether to attend Donald Trump’s speech to a joint session of Congress this evening, and the degree to which they should express their dislike of what he will say.Many lawmakers plan to be there, but bring along guests with personal stories that can speak to the risks and failures of Trump’s ideology. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she invited Elena Hung, an advocate for Medicaid, the insurance program for poor and disabled Americans that Trump wants to cut:
      Elena Hung’s courageous daughter, Xiomara, was born with a number of serious medical conditions and is thriving today as a result of access to quality health care – including Medicaid …
      At a time when Medicaid is under assault by those who seek to give tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations, I am honored that Xiomara’s story will be told through Elena’s attendance as my guest to this year’s address to a joint session of Congress.
      Some Democrats want to stage protests during the speech, not unlike the heckling Joe Biden got last year when he gave what turned out to be his final State of the Union address. Axios has more about their plans, which are not popular with minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:
      Some members have told colleagues they may walk out of the chamber when Trump says specific lines they find objectionable, lawmakers told Axios. Criticism of transgender kids was brought up as a line in the sand that could trigger members to storm out, according to a House Democrat.
      A wide array of props – including noisemakers – has also been floated: Signs with anti-Trump or anti-DOGE messages – just as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) held up a sign during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech last year that said “war criminal.” Eggs or empty egg cartons to highlight how inflation is driving up the price of eggs.
      Finally, some lawmakers are boycotting the address. Among them is progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said on Bluesky she’d be “live posting and chatting with you all here instead. Then going on [Instagram] Live after.”The magnitude and scale of President Trump’s decision to go ahead with 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico has had economists recalling the Tariff Act (1930) signed by President Herbert Hoover.It saw average tariffs jump by 20% for thousands of different imported goods, as the US tried to protect its depressed agricultural sector from foreign competition.Proposed by senator Reed Smoot and representative Willis C Hawley, the bill, reported in the Manchester Guardian (below) was opposed by more than onethousand economists, who warned Hoover of a dramatic downturn in US trade with other countries, especially from those that retaliated.Nonetheless Hoover signed it into law, with some Congress members, realising the vote was quite close, engaging in logrolling to get something for their constituency in return for their support.The impact of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was, as predicted, highly damaging to the United States, with estimates of imported goods, many of which were needed by US industry and commerce, plummeting by nearly half.The tariffs also caused shock waves to global trade as other nations deployed protectionist policies, resulting in an estimated half of the 25% decline in world trade.Elon Musk will brief House republicans tonight about criticism of Doge cuts, Bloomberg News and the Hill report. Tonight at 7pm, Musk, who leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – which has been slashing the federal workforce and the budgets of federal agencies – will meet in the House basement with Republican lawmakers about complaints from their constituents about the mass firings.Mass firings have taken place at the Department of Veteran Affairs, Defense Department, Department of Education, Department of Health and Human Services, the IRS, National Parks, and more.In a message to employees on Monday, the newly confirmed secretary of education, Linda McMahon, a billionaire ex-wrestling executive, laid out the “final mission” for the department as Donald Trump threatens to dismantle the agency.“My vision is aligned with the President’s: to send education back to the states and empower all parents to choose an excellent education for their children,” wrote McMahon, a co-founder of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the professional wrestling organisation. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.”The message comes as Trump is reportedly finalizing plans to issue an executive order to eliminate the 45-year-old US Department of Education and eliminate or reorganize the department’s functions and programs.Workers at the Department of Education called the email a “power grab” focused on privatization at the expense of children with disabilities and from low-income families.“It’s heartbreaking to read such a disingenuous, manipulative letter from the head of the agency,” said one employee who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “I don’t read the letter to be an end to the department. It reads as a transformation into something sinister, a tool for the president to use to ensure his ideology is implemented by states and local governments at the risk of losing funding. It’s the exact overreach it’s purporting to stop.”You can read more on this story here:Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social to respond to Canada’s announcement of retaliatory measures against the US after Donald Trump imposed his sweeping tariffs plan: “Please explain to Governor Trudeau, of Canada, that when he puts on a Retaliatory Tariff on the U.S., our Reciprocal Tariff will immediately increase by a like amount!”Trump flippantly referring to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as “Governor” in his post underscores the president’s previous comments that he wants to annex Canada and make it the 51st US state.When asked what he would tell his constituents who have federal government jobs and are worried about the so-called department of government efficiency’s cuts to the federal workforce, Republican senator Tommy Tuberville told ABC News: “We’re going to have to suck it up.” He echoed Trump’s calls to “stop the bleeding” and spend less, even though this means it will hurt Americans. Federal employees make up 7.6% of the workforce Huntsville, Alabama. Many of these employees work at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center.In response to the tariffs that went in effect today, which experts say will raise the price of goods, Tuberville said “there’s going to be pain” but that it was the best way forward for the country.Donald Trump has upended the United States’ relationship with three of its top trading partners by following through on his campaign promise to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China. Prime minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs were “a very dumb thing to do” and announced Canada would impose retaliatory levies, while in Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would announce her nation’s response on Sunday. Trump defended the decision as necessary to restore domestic manufacturing, though his commerce secretary acknowledged they could drive prices higher in the short term. The president is expected to elaborate on the decision this evening, when he addresses the first joint session of Congress of his new term.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      The CEOs of two large US retailers, Target and Best Buy, said they expected prices to go up as a result of Trump’s trade war.

      Ontario’s premier Doug Ford told the Wall Street Journal that he was imposing a 25% export tax on electricity sent to three US states, and might cut it off altogether if the tariffs linger.

      Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was ready to sign the minerals deal Trump was demanding, and acknowledged his White House meeting last week “did not go the way it was supposed to”.
      The Trump administration has backed down from its demand for federal agencies to fire employees on probation, even after many have already been let go.The decision comes as a federal judge temporarily halted the administration’s move, which was part of a larger effort to thin out the federal workforce and targeted at workers who were newly hired or promoted.In a revised memo, the office of personnel management instead instructed agency human resource chiefs to send them lists of workers on probation and determine whether those employees should be retained, without specifying that they be terminated. It’s unclear what this will mean for workers who have already been fired.The development was first reported by the Washington Post.Jason Miller, a top adviser to Donald Trump, says the president will defend his trade war to Americans when he speaks to a joint session of Congress tonight.“I would say that he’s going to lean into it and he’s going to talk about how increasing tariffs can actually go and close the trade deficits … [in] January we saw a record trade deficit, particularly when it comes to countries such as Canada, Mexico, China. And how, if we don’t go and do this now, we’re going to be completely wiped out by certain industries here in the United States,” Miller told CNN in an interview.“Ultimately the costs on this are going to be carried by the producers and the foreign countries as opposed to Americans,” he added, repeating a common argument of the administration that economists are skeptical of.Back in the US, more business leaders are warning consumers to expect higher prices as a result of Donald Trump’s trade war. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones and Leyland Cecco:Americans have been warned to brace for higher prices within days after Donald Trump pulled the trigger on Monday and imposed US tariffs on goods from Canada and Mexico, and hiked tariffs on China.Global stock markets came under pressure again on Tuesday, with leading indices falling sharply – and the benchmark S&P 500 losing all its post-election gains – as Canada, Mexico and China vowed to retaliate, and investors balked at the prospect of an acrimonious trade war.US retail giants predicted that prices were “highly likely” to start rising on shelves almost immediately after a 25% duty came into effect on exports from Mexico to the US.Most Canadian exports to the US also now face a 25% duty, with a 10% rate for energy products. The Trump administration imposed a 10% levy on all Chinese exports to the US last month, which has now been doubled to 20%.Trump, who won back the White House after pledging repeatedly to bring prices down, has acknowledged that his controversial trade strategy could lead them to rise. Consumers could face “some short-term disturbance”, the president conceded last month.With US retailers relying heavily on imports from Mexico and Canada to stock their shelves, top executives claimed they would have no choice but to increase prices.Justin Trudeau went on to accuse Donald Trump of seeking to destroy the Canadian economy to make the country easier to annex – something he insisted was “never going to happen”.“What he wants is to see a total collapse of the Canadian economy, because that will make it easier to annex us, is the second half of his thought. Now, first of all, that’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state, but yeah, he can do damage to the Canadian economy, and he started this morning,” Trudeau said.The prime minister warned that Americans will suffer in the trade war as well:
      As American families are going to find out, that’s going to hurt people on both sides of the border. Americans will lose jobs, Americans will be paying more for groceries, for gas, for cars, for homes, because we have always done best when we work together. So we are, of course, open to starting negotiations on the customer review, but let us not fool ourselves about what he seems to be wanting.
      Justin Trudeau also said that he did not believe Donald Trump’s insistence that tariffs were imposed in retaliation for Canada’s failure to combat fentanyl trafficking.“We have laid out extensive plans, actions, cooperations, including as recently as the past days in Washington, and they have always been very well received, and the numbers bear that out,” the prime minister said.“I think in what President Trump said yesterday, that there is nothing Canada or Mexico can do to avoid these tariffs, underlines very clearly what I think a lot of us have suspected for a long time, that these tariffs are not specifically about fentanyl, even though that is the legal justification he must use to actually move forward with these tariffs.” More

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      Bernie Sanders dismisses Republicans’ ‘horrific’ calls for Zelenskyy to resign

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      Independent US senator Bernie Sanders has dismissed as “horrific” claims that Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy may have to resign after a diplomatic meltdown in the Oval Office with Donald Trump.Sanders’ comments, in an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press on Sunday morning, served as a retort to pro-resignation remarks from his fellow US senator Lindsey Graham, which in turn had been affirmed by the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson.“I think that is a horrific suggestion,” Sanders told NBC’s Kristen Welker in the interview. “Zelenskyy is leading a country, trying to defend democracy against an authoritarian dictator, [Vladimir] Putin,” the Russian dictator whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022.“I think millions of Americans are embarrassed, are ashamed that you have a president of the United States who says Ukraine started the war, that Zelenskyy is a dictator,” Sanders continued, referring to Trump. “He’s got it exactly backwards.“The people of Ukraine have lost tens of thousands of soldiers, their cities are being bombed as we speak. Our job is to defend the 250-year tradition that we have of being the democratic leader of the world, not turn our backs on a struggling country that is trying to do the right thing.”The comments from Johnson came after Zelenskyy’s contentious meeting on Friday at the White House with Trump and JD Vance. As part of a deal with the US involving minerals in Ukraine, Zelenskyy had sought security guarantees from the US as Ukraine defended itself from Russia’s invasion. That prompted the US vice-president to accuse Zelenskyy of not being grateful enough for US aid – and for the US president to ask Zelenskyy to leave the White House without the minerals deal being signed.Trump is the not first US president during Ukraine’s war to accuse him of being ungrateful for the US military’s assistance.In October 2022, citing four sources familiar with the exchange, NBC News reported that then president Joe Biden lost his temper in a phone call with Zelenskyy in which he told Zelenskyy he had authorized another $1bn in assistance for Ukraine – to which Zelenskyy responded by listing the additional help he needed.NBC reported that Zelenskyy issued a statement praising the US for its aid after that call with Biden. And, in an Twitter/X post on Saturday, Zelenskyy thanked the US and Trump “for all the support … during these three years of full-scale invasion”.Nonetheless, on ABC’s This Week on Sunday, US secretary of state Marco Rubio accused Zelenskyy of undermining Friday’s talks by failing to “contain himself” trying to “Ukraine-splain on every issue”.“I hope this could all be reset,” Rubio said.Meanwhile, on Meet the Press on Sunday, Johnson told host Kristen Welker that “something has to change” with Zelenskyy.“Either he needs to come to his senses and come back to the table in gratitude or someone else needs to lead the country to do that,” Johnson said.Johnson claimed Zelenskyy should have shown gratitude and thanks to the US in the meeting and argued the push for US mineral rights in Ukraine as part of a peace agreement is “a win for everyone” that will give the US minerals it needs and Ukraine a level of security.On CBS’s Face the Nation, Johnson’s fellow Republican congressman Mike Turner, the chairperson of the House intelligence committee, added: “Instead of taking that win, Zelenskyy turned it into a debate on American security guarantees [on the] peace negotiations.”Turner also said: “[Zelenskyy] needs to not have this precondition of American security guarantees, which are not coming.”The derailed meeting incited pro-Ukraine protests around the US. And leaders across Europe, along with the prime ministers of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, posted messages of support for Ukraine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“For three years now, Ukrainians have fought with courage and resilience. Their fight for democracy, freedom and sovereignty is a fight that matters to us all,” Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau wrote on X after the White House meeting. “Canada will continue to stand with Ukraine and Ukrainians in achieving a just and lasting peace.”Only 4% of Americans say they support Russia in its invasion of Ukraine, according to the results of a CBS poll published on Sunday.Notably, though, only a slim majority of Americans say they support Ukraine: 52%. And a large minority – 44% – say they do not support either Russia or Ukraine.Speaking to Face the Nation on Sunday, Democratic US senator Mark Kelly of Arizona said Zelenskyy was “cornered” and “bullied” in the Oval Office on Friday during what was “a sad day for our country”.“It was a dumpster fire of diplomacy,” Kelly said.Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski was one Republican US senator who condemned the Trump administration over the way Friday’s meeting with Zelenskyy unfolded.In an X post, she called the meeting a “shocking conversation”.“I know foreign policy is not for the faint of heart, but right now, I am sick to my stomach that the administration appears to be walking away from our allies and embrace Putin, a threat to democracy and US values around the world.”Republican US senator James Lankford, for his part, said he disagreed with calls for Zelenskyy to resign.“I’m not interested in calling on the resignation of other world leaders,” Lankford told Meet the Press. “Quite frankly, I think that would spiral Ukraine into chaos right now.” More