WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address from Congress on Tuesday to a nation in sudden change.
A year into his term, Trump has emerged as a president who defies conventional expectations. He has pursued a dizzying agenda that has upended domestic priorities, undermined alliances abroad, and challenged the nation’s basic system of checks and balances. Two Americans were killed by federal agents while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration raids and mass deportations.
As lawmakers sit on the House floor to hear Trump’s agenda for the year ahead, it’s an existential moment for a Congress that has been largely sidelined by his sweeping influence as the Republican president bypasses his slim Republican majority to amass enormous power for himself.
“This is crazy,” said Nancy Henderson Korpi, a retiree in northern Minnesota who joined an Indivisible protest group and planned to watch the speech at home. “But what’s more disturbing to me is that Congress has basically just transferred power.”
“If Congress does its job, we can make some smart decisions and changes,” she said.
The state of the Union is changing dramatically
The United States is at a crossroads, celebrating its 250th anniversary while also experiencing the most significant changes in politics, policy and general sentiment in many Americans’ lifetimes.
The president has muscled his way through Congress when needed, often pressuring lawmakers by phone on pending votes but more often avoiding messy concessions in the legislative process to outdo his own party and the often-united Democratic opposition.
Trump’s signature legislative achievement to date has been the Republican tax cut bill, which included creating new savings accounts for babies, no tax on tips and other special deductions, and deep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food assistance. It also provides the Department of Homeland Security with more than $170 billion to deport immigrants.
But the Republican-led Congress largely stood aside as Trump dramatically seized power through hundreds of executive actions, many of which were challenged in court, and was willing to do whatever it took to impose his agenda.
“Recovering lost powers is not an easy task in our constitutional order,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the Supreme Court’s landmark rebuke of Trump’s tariff policies on Friday.
Gorsuch said that if the courts do not intervene on major issues, “our system of separations of powers and checks and balances may be replaced by a continued, permanent increase in power in the hands of a single person.”
Trump goes it alone, with or without Congress
From slashing the federal workforce to upending childhood vaccination programs to attacking Venezuela and capturing the country’s president, Trump’s influence seems limitless.
His administration launched an investigation into potential political enemies, put his name on historic buildings including the famed John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and, perhaps most obviously, rounded up people and converted warehouses into deportation detention centers.
At nearly every step, there were moments when Congress could have intervened but did not.
Minority Democrats have often tried to fight back, including by halting regular homeland security funding unless restrictions on immigration were imposed.
But Republicans believe the country elected the president and gave their party control of Congress to fit his agenda, according to a senior Republican leadership aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the development.
Louisiana House Speaker Mike Johnson said Trump will be the “most influential” president in modern times.
Democrats plan to either boycott the speech or remain silent.
“The nation is falling apart,” said New York House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Congress sometimes sticks to its guns
Congress has sometimes persisted in defying the White House, but these have been rare — such as the high-profile bipartisan push by Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, R-Calif., to force the release of Jeffrey Epstein’s documents over the objections of Johnson and Republican leadership.
Flexibility in congressional power comes more from a handful of rebellious Republicans joining with a majority of Democrats to check the president, as when the House voted to block Trump from imposing tariffs on Canada. The Senate introduced a war powers resolution to prevent military action against Venezuela without congressional approval but abandoned it after Trump intervened.
These were mostly symbolic votes because Congress did not have the numbers to overcome any expected Trump vetoes.
More often, Congress caves to Trump, canceling bipartisan funding for USAID foreign aid or public broadcasting, or failing to stop a U.S. military strike on suspected drug-smuggling vessels that killed two survivors in the Caribbean. When Trump pardoned some 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack on Day One, congressional Republicans did not object.
As the Department of Government Effectiveness, led by Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, begins laying off federal workers, Republican lawmakers formed their own DOGE caucus on Capitol Hill to express approval.
“The core question for us is whether the public understands what’s at stake,” said Max Stier, chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit focused on government and democracy. “Our government and civil servants are in the midst of the most significant changes in our nation’s history.”
He said about 300,000 federal employees were laid off or transferred, while most of the 100,000 new or rehired employees went to the Department of Homeland Security.
Checks and balances are being challenged
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, said a record number of cases are being filed against the government in courts across the country because Congress is “asleep at the wheel.” The group has filed more than 150 cases against the government, part of the largest legal action against the executive branch in U.S. history.
But the judicial system has been under strain, and the White House has not always complied with court rulings. Republican lawmakers have also joined Trump in criticizing the court, displaying posters outside their offices of judges they want to impeach.
The next big test will be the proof-of-citizenship voting bill Trump hopes to pass before the midterm elections.
The House has passed the Save America Act, which would require a birth certificate or passport when registering to vote in federal elections and a photo ID when voting. Supporters say it is necessary to combat fraud, while critics argue it will prevent millions of Americans from voting because they do not have readily available citizenship documents.
The Senate passed the measure with a majority, but fell short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic-led filibuster.
Trump has vowed to take executive action if Congress fails to approve the legislation.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of President Donald Trump: https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump.