President Donald Trump has accomplished much in his first six weeks in office, and he deserves credit for it. But now we need to hear what the president intends to do with Congress, the institution essential to ensuring that Trump’s reforms will endure. This should be a central theme of what he says in prime time Tuesday night in the first speech to the joint session of Congress in his second term.
Nowhere has Trump’s executive agenda been more successful than on immigration. In February 2024, 189,913 illegal immigrants were intercepted attempting to cross the southern border. This February, thanks to Trump’s policies, the number was 8,326, a massive decline to a level not seen in decades. Bravo.
Trump’s unequivocal border security success puts the lie to every claim made by former President Joe Biden and members of the Democratic Party that the border crisis was due not to their egregious policies and mismanagement but to world events and that Congress was needed to end the crisis. The truth is, and always has been, that it was Biden’s catch-and-release program that was the sole cause of the mass illegal immigration crisis, and by ending those policies, Trump has secured the border.
The president has also made progress in restoring common sense and fairness to the issue of “gender,” restoring the scientifically sound and obvious truth that there are only two sexes. He has ended diversity, equity, and inclusion programs throughout the federal government that were, by definition, racist and divisive. Trump has also brought an end to much of the lawfare pursued by the Biden administration, most notably by ending the persecution of pro-life demonstrators and gender whistleblowers throughout the country.
The Department of Government Efficiency has found and halted some highly questionable spending, including $20 billion in grants made by the Environmental Protection Agency to supposed nonprofit organizations run by rapidly enriched Democratic Party operatives. One of them got $2 billion despite having existed for less than a year and thus having no record of success. These payments were part of Biden’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and amounted, in truth, to nothing more nor less than a gift for Democratic Party officials and their staff at taxpayers’ expense.
Welcome and impressive as these accomplishments are, however, Trump cannot do it all by himself. He needs Congress’s help to make real progress on spending cuts and deficit reduction. That is what we need to hear from Trump on Tuesday night: how his “big beautiful bill” will continue progress on the three big issues voters care about — inflation, the economy, and immigration.
No budget item has grown faster over the last decade than Medicaid. Trump has said he will not cut Medicaid but will go after fraud and abuse. It is to be hoped that that includes states such as California that game the system by taxing Medicaid providers to boost Medicaid costs, which are then paid for by federal taxpayers and laundered back to Medicaid providers. Medicaid is a program created to serve truly needy people, such as mothers, pregnant women, and disabled people, not able-bodied adults. By returning the program to its true purpose, cutting waste and abuse, Trump can reduce deficits while improving healthcare for the most vulnerable among us.
Trump also needs to boost economic growth, which can be accomplished by making his 2017 tax cuts permanent, another item that can be accomplished only by working with Congress. The Senate has every right to make its mark on the reconciliation bill already passed by the House, but Trump should call on it to move quickly. The sooner taxpayers know their liabilities will not go up, the sooner businesses can start making investment decisions that will power job creation and wage growth.
Trump has taken a big step by rescinding all White House Council on Environmental Quality regulations for implementing the National Environmental Policy Act. It means we are nearer again being a country that builds things. The NEPA is perhaps the biggest impediment to energy development and housing construction. Streamlining the NEPA’s regulatory compliance process would help. But with the NEPA still on the books, activists will retain the power to stop projects in federal court. Trump needs Congress to repeal or radically reform the NEPA if real progress is to be made.
On immigration, Trump has floated an excellent idea for attracting the most talented people in the world to America. It is his “gold card.” But, again, this is not a policy he can do on his own. Fortunately, because the gold card could bring in upwards of $5 trillion over 10 years, it is an item that would have a significant budgetary impact, and it is, therefore, likely to pass muster to be included in the Senate’s reconciliation process, which can get a law on the books with only a simple majority in the upper chamber.
MIKE JOHNSON’S BIG BEAUTIFUL WIN
In addition to legislative proposals, Trump should also lay out what he envisages in relation to Ukraine. What will U.S. economic interests be through mineral development, and how will Ukrainian sovereignty be protected from Russian threats? Trump should also outline his approach to containing China’s ambitions not just in the Pacific but also in Africa, Europe, and South America.
The majority of voters say Trump is doing a better job as president than Biden did, but that is a low bar. He is off to a good start but needs to show he can work with Congress if he wants to leave a lasting legacy. Tuesday night is the right moment to explain his plans.