The Spokesman Review | Northwest lawmakers react to Trump’s address to Congress
By: Orion Donovan Smith and Mitchell Roland
WASHINGTON – In an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump touted his administration’s swift actions to remake the federal government in his image, provoking cheers from his fellow Republicans and loud protests from Democrats.
Responses from Northwest lawmakers after the speech reflected the deep divide between the parties. In a bygone era, presidents used the annual speech to recount their accomplishments and signal their priorities for the year ahead while encouraging the bipartisanship that’s needed to pass most legislation in Congress. Trump extended no such olive branches, doubling down on divisiveness and seeming to relish the raucous atmosphere.
“I was saved by God to make America great again,” the president said near the end of his address, repeating an idea he has touted since surviving an assassination attempt during the 2024 campaign.
“Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty, and it is our turn to take America’s destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country,” Trump said later. “This will be our greatest era. With God’s help, over the next four years we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of our earth.”
In the hours leading up to the president’s address on Tuesday, his administration slapped steep tariffs on Canada and Mexico, two of the United States’ biggest trading partners, sending the stock market tumbling. Trump also halted U.S. aid to Ukraine on Tuesday, days after he clashed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an extraordinary scene in the Oval Office, following a series of statements by the American president that echoed the position of Russia, whose forces invaded Ukraine three years earlier.
Rep. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, said after the address that while he disagreed with a few things Trump said and was concerned about the impact of the tariffs on Eastern Washington, “I thought it was a good night for America.”
The freshman congressman – who met Trump for the first time as the president left the chamber and mentioned their mutual friend, the late Washington State football coach Mike Leach – said the tone in the House chamber reminded him of Parliament in the United Kingdom, where lawmakers routinely trade barbs with the prime minister.
“The American people know who President Trump is,” Baumgartner said. “He’s a fighter and he’s a counterpuncher. Throughout his career, if he gets insulted, if he gets verbally hit, he hits back. With that being said, I wish that wasn’t the discourse in America and I wish there was more civility.”
Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Tacoma, said in a brief interview that the event “felt like a political pep rally.”
“President Trump was supposed to have been elected because of the cost of living,” she said, but he spent little time in his address talking about lowering costs, instead going on what she called “bizarre tangents.”
“Nothing he said was surprising to me,” Strickland said. “Donald Trump is all about theater and drama, and so he delivered pretty much what we expected him to deliver.”
The president leaned into the “culture war” issues that were a large focus of his campaign, ridiculing transgender Americans and other causes that Democrats generally support, which he sums up as “wokeness.”
“Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad,” he said, to wild cheers from Republicans. “It’s gone. It’s gone.”
In another line he has frequently repeated before and after winning the 2024 election, Trump called former President Joe Biden “the worst president in American history.”
Todd Schaefer, a political science professor at Central Washington University, said that while presidents often refer to their predecessors in speeches to Congress, Trump’s address was more “vengeful” than previous addresses.
“This was a political theatre, he is a master showman in a lot of ways,” Schaefer said. “He was using Democrats as foils, I think they played into his hand.”
With decorum during recent presidential addresses declining, Schaefer said the White House likely anticipated a combative crowd, at least from those in the minority, something Trump used to his advantage. In one of the most notable interruptions, Rep. Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, was removed from the chamber after refusing to sit down toward the beginning of Trump’s address, something Schaefer said was “very unusual.”
“I don’t know that that really helped the Democrats’ cause,” Schaefer said. “I think Trump knows he is in a very good power position.”
Schaefer said Trump also made effective use of the guests he invited to the gallery, which presidents often strategically use to highlight their agenda. The anecdotes, Schaefer said, may have played well at home for those who are less engaged.
Roughly 30 minutes into his speech, Trump turned to the gallery above the House floor and recognized Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur he has deputized to slash government spending and shrink the federal workforce through mass layoffs. Reflecting the unprecedented level of power he has given to the world’s richest man, whose companies hold billions in federal contracts, Trump dedicated a lengthy part of the night to highlighting Musk’s work.
When Trump declared that “unelected bureaucrats” would no longer control the government, Democrats laughed incredulously and pointed at Musk.
Before the address, Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and other Democratic senators held a news conference with their guests, each of whom had been impacted by the mass layoffs and funding cuts the new administration has carried out in its first six weeks.
Cantwell’s guest, Paul Lange, warned that Trump’s proposed cuts to medical research funding would decimate the kind of federal support that helped him found the Institute for Prostate Cancer Research at the University of Washington and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center.
Mike Missal, who helped expose how a faulty computer system harmed Inland Northwest veterans as the VA’s inspector general, was invited by Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate VA Committee, to highlight Trump’s mass firing of agency watchdogs.
Outside the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon, anti-Trump and pro-Ukraine demonstrators chanted, held signs and waved to drivers – many of whom honked their approval as they passed by. When a couple wearing Trump’s signature “Make America Great Again” hats pulled up in front of them at a stoplight, protesters jokingly chided the motorists for being in the wrong place.
As Trump began his speech by proclaiming, “America is back,” GOP lawmakers leapt up, whooping and pumping their fists. Meanwhile, most Democrats stayed seated, with many holding small signs that read “protect veterans,” “Musk steals” and “save Medicaid.”
When Green stood and shouted at Trump, “You have no mandate to cut Medicaid,” Republicans drowned him out by chanting “USA! USA!” and one GOP lawmaker shouted, “Sit your ass down!”
After Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., directed the security staff of the Sergeant at Arms to remove Green from the chamber – to cheers from Republicans – a Democrat loudly demanded that Johnson direct Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., to remove the red hat she was wearing. The cap, which violated the House floor’s dress code, bore the message, “Trump was right about everything.”
Republicans laughed as Trump rattled off a list of foreign aid programs had halted, including assistance to the African nation of Lesotho, which the president claimed that “no one has ever heard of.”
In an awkward exception to the otherwise constant applause from Republicans, Trump criticized the CHIPS and Science Act, which Congress passed in 2022 with wide bipartisan support to boost U.S. manufacturing and research. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat who was a leading architect of that law, sat stone-faced as some of her GOP counterparts gradually began to applaud as the president attacked a bill they voted for.
When the president repeated his pledge to end federal taxes on overtime pay – in addition to tips and Social Security income – Rep. Russ Fulcher, a Republican who represents North Idaho and has introduced legislation to eliminate federal tax on overtime income, mimicked Trump’s signature thumbs-up gesture.
The yearly event serves as a sort of nonchoreographed collective performance by lawmakers, who communicate their support or disapproval through their applause and cheers – or lack thereof. When Trump entered the chamber, Republicans greeted him with thunderous applause and a long standing ovation, while only a few Democrats stood and clapped politely for a few seconds.
Earlier, when the president’s cabinet entered the room, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of New Mexico, a Gonzaga Law School alumna, was one of just a handful of Democrats who applauded, while Cantwell stood silently, hands clasped.
In a brief interview before the address, Cantwell said Trump’s actions – especially the taxes on imports and cuts to research and development – will raise costs and hurt the U.S. economy in the long run.
“I thought this president was going to come in and deal with costs and inflation,” she said. “We’re on day 40-plus and we’ve seen no idea or sign of what he wants to do to lower costs, and yet he proposes things that are increasing costs.”
Rep. Kim Schrier, a Democrat whose district stretches from Wenatchee to the Seattle suburbs, said before the address in a statement that she felt conflicted about attending the speech because of the harm his policies are causing her constituents.
“Between tariffs, Medicaid cuts, and forest service cuts, my district is going to be very hurt by this administration,” Schrier wrote in a text message, then she quoted Trump. “ ‘And we’re just getting started.’ ”
Northwest Republicans universally praised the president’s address in statements released afterward.
Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, described Trump’s speech as “a very inspirational and aspirational accounting” of his first six weeks in office.
“I don’t know that we’ve ever had a new president come in who has been so energetic in the number of things that he’s going to accomplish in his first 100 days, and he’s off to a great start,” said Newhouse, who drew Trump’s ire after being one of just 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach him for his role in the 2021 Capitol riot.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho Falls, said in a statement that Trump is “working at an unprecedented pace” and “has wasted no time putting Americans first.”
“President Trump’s speech tonight made clear that he will be the strong leader America needs at this turbulent time,” Sen. Jim Risch, an Idaho Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement. “Under his administration, American foreign policy will reflect a new era that places American interests front and center as we seek to protect U.S. national security.”
Cornell Clayton, a political science professor at Washington State University, said speeches to joint sessions of Congress have grown more partisan in recent years, both in their content and in the response from lawmakers in attendance. But Trump’s speech on Tuesday, he said, took a more “nasty” tone than past addresses, with the president taking shots at the previous administration and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., among others.
“I think there was a tone to it that we haven’t seen in the past,” Clayton said. “We’re used to increasingly partisan shows at these types of events, but the first nasty undertone was, I think, something quite unusually.”
Though Clayton described Trump’s speech as “totally forgettable,” he called the Democrats’ response in the chamber “completely incoherent.”
“There was no strategy but the little placards, which didn’t seem to make much sense,” Clayton said.
Ultimately, Clayton said, the speech likely won’t have a lasting impact.
“I think we all lost two hours of our time,” he said.
Clayton praised the Democratic response delivered by Michigan Sen. Elisa Slotkin, which he described as “effective.”
“She gave a short speech, she spoke very clearly and articulately,” Clayton said. “She addressed issues that the vast majority of Americans care about.”
Unusual for a Democrat, Slotkin hailed President Ronald Reagan. She also warned of Musks’ actions that could violate Americans’ privacy and decried deep cuts in government workforce.
“President Trump is trying to deliver an unprecedented giveaway to his billionaire friends. He’s on the hunt to find trillions of dollars to pass along to the wealthiest in America. And to do that, he’s going to make you pay in every part of your life,” Slotkin said. “Grocery and home prices are going up, not down – and he hasn’t laid out a credible plan to deal with either.”
Clayton said the president also missed an opportunity to win over the broader American public, something he said he thinks Trump will need to do “to be the type of president he aspires to be.”
“I think he missed a chance to reach out to people who are undecided people, who are independents, who want to see change, but they want to see it in a more thoughtful and a less partisan and antagonistic way,” Clayton said.