Trump's big speech will be delivered to a changed nation and a Congress
he has sidelined
[February 24, 2026]
By LISA MASCARO
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will stand before Congress on
Tuesday to deliver the annual State of the Union address to a suddenly
transformed nation.
One year back in office, Trump has emerged as a president defying
conventional expectations. He has executed a head-spinning agenda,
upending priorities at home, shattering alliances abroad and challenging
the nation's foundational system of checks and balances. Two Americans
were killed by federal agents while protesting the Trump
administration's immigration raids and mass deportations.
As the lawmakers sit in the House chamber listening to Trump's agenda
for the year ahead, the moment is an existential one for the Congress,
which has essentially become sidelined by his expansive reach, the
Republican president bypassing his slim GOP majority to amass enormous
power for himself.
“It’s crazy," said Nancy Henderson Korpi, a retiree in northern
Minnesota who joined an Indivisible protest group and plans to watch the
speech from home. “But what is disturbing more to me is that Congress
has essentially just handed over their power.”
She said, “We could make some sound decisions and changes if Congress
would do their job.”
The state of the union is upheaval
The country is at a crossroads, celebrating its 250th anniversary while
experiencing some of the most significant changes to its politics,
policies and general mood in many Americans' lifetimes.
The president muscled his agenda through Congress when he needed to —
often pressuring lawmakers with a phone call during cliffhanger votes —
but more often avoided the messy give-and-take of the legislative
process to power past his own party and the often unified Democratic
opposition.
Trump's signature legislative accomplishment so far is the GOP’s big tax
cuts bill, with its new savings accounts for babies, no taxes on tips
and other specialty deductions, and steep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food
aid. It also fueled more than $170 billion to Homeland Security for his
immigration deportations.
But the GOP-led Congress has largely stood by as Trump dramatically
seized power through hundreds of executive actions, many being
challenged in court, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to impose
his agenda.
“Retrieving a lost power is no easy business in our constitutional
order,” wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the Supreme Court's landmark
rebuke of Trump's tariffs policy on Friday.
Gorsuch said that without the court stepping in on major questions, “Our
system of separated powers and checks-and-balances threatens to give way
to the continual and permanent accretion of power in the hands of one
man.”
Trump goes it alone, with or without Congress
From slashing the federal workforce to upending the childhood vaccine
schedule to attacking Venezuela and capturing that country's president,
Trump's reach appeared to know no bounds.
His administration launched investigations of would-be political foes,
imposed his name on historic buildings, including the storied John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and perhaps most visibly has
been rounding up people and converting warehouses into detention holding
centers for deportations.
At almost every step of the way, there were moments when Congress could
have intervened but did not.
Democrats, in the minority, often tried to push back, including by
halting routine Homeland Security funds unless there are restraints on
the immigration actions.
But Republicans believe the country elected the president and gave their
party control of Congress to align with his agenda, according to one
senior GOP leadership aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the
dynamic.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has said Trump will be the “most
consequential” president of the modern era.
Democrats plan to either boycott the speech or sit in stony silence.
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President Donald Trump holds an executive order regarding coal
during an event in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Feb.
11, 2026, in Washington, as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, House
Speaker Mike Johnson of La., and coal miners watch. (AP Photo/Evan
Vucci)
“The state of the union is falling apart,” said House Democratic
Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.
Congress asserts itself, at times
There have been times when Congress held its own against the White
House, but they have been rare — as in the high-profile bipartisan
push 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 GOP leadership.
The flex of congressional power has more often come from a few
renegade Republicans joining with most Democrats to put a check on
the president, as when the House voted to block Trump's tariffs on
Canada. The Senate advanced a war powers resolution to prevent
military action in Venezuela without congressional approval, but
backed off after Trump intervened.
Those have been mostly symbolic votes, because Congress would not
have the numbers to overcome any expected Trump veto.
More often, the Congress has accommodated Trump, by rolling back
already approved bipartisan funding for USAID foreign aid or public
broadcasting or failing to stop the U.S. military strikes on alleged
drug-smuggling boats that killed two survivors in the Caribbean.
When Trump issued a Day One pardon of some 1,500 people charged in
the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, the Republicans in Congress
did not object.
And as Trump's Department of Government Efficiency with billionaire
Elon Musk started firing federal workers, GOP lawmakers signaled
approval by forming their own DOGE caucus on Capitol Hill.
“The central question for us is does the public understand what's at
stake” said Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a
nonprofit organization focused on government management and
democracy. “We are in the midst of the most significant
transformation of our government and our public servants in our
history as a country.”
He said some 300,000 federal employees were fired or moved on, while
100,000 new hires or rehires have largely gone to Homeland Security.
Checks and balances are being challenged
In courtrooms across the country, cases are being filed against the
administration at record levels, as Congress was “asleep at the
wheel,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which
has filed more than 150 cases against the administration, part of
the largest legal effort against an executive branch in U.S.
history.
But the judicial system has been under strain, and the White House
has not always abided by court rulings. GOP lawmakers have joined
Trump's criticism of the courts, displaying outside their offices
posters of judges they want to impeach.
A next big test will be over a proof-of-citizenship voting bill that
Trump wants ahead of the midterm elections.
The House has passed the SAVE America Act, which would require birth
certificates or passports to register to vote in federal elections
and a photo ID at the polls. Supporters say it’s needed to crack
down on fraud, while critics argue it will shut millions of
Americans out of voting because they don’t have citizenship
documents readily available.
The Senate has a majority to pass the measure but not the necessary
60 votes to overcome an expected Democratic-led filibuster.
Trump has vowed executive actions if Congress fails to approve
legislation.
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