Defiant Trump signals full speed ahead on divisive policies

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

56% : " Trump arrived in the House chamber for the joint address to Congress with vivid reminders of the control that Republicans now exert over the nation's Capitol.
55% : In his speech, Trump proposed "a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska" and actions "to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths" in the United States.
54% : I just got it a little time ago," Trump said, adding that Russia has offered "strong signals they are ready for peace.
51% : And, in perhaps the warmest moment of the night, Trump awarded honorary Secret Service agent status to 13-year-old DJ Daniel, a cancer survivor who is attending the event with his father.
47% : President Donald Trump on Tuesday night addressed a divided nation in a speech marked by acrimony, as a Texas Democrat was escorted from the chamber within the first few moments and as Trump taunted Democrats in the room -- outlining a message of defiant optimism for those who support him and gloomy despair for those who don't.
46% : " At another point, as Trump proclaimed, "The days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over," several Democrats shouted and pointed at Musk in the gallery.
44% : Just several minutes into the speech, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) stood up, shook his cane in the air and shouted at Trump: "You don't have a mandate!
44% : Some administration officials have hinted that the tariffs could be short-lived, but Trump gave little indication of that during his remarks.
43% : It also arrived hours after the stock market tumbled as a result of his newly imposed tariffs, but Trump doubled down on his plans for reciprocal tariffs and made clear that he was unrestrained by any rising Democratic resistance, signs of economic trouble or falsehoods as he made a number of claims unsupported by the facts.
41% : He also claimed that they were taking aim at massive "fraud" in Social Security being paid out to deceased Americans who are still in the system.
40% : " Among the guests sitting with first lady Melania Trump were Marc Fogel, the history teacher from Pennsylvania who was freed last month from a Russian prison and returned to the United States in a surprise move the Trump administration described as a "show of good faith" from Russia to end the war in Ukraine, along with his mother, Malphine, who had asked Trump to help.
33% : And while several prominent members of the party chose to boycott the speech -- a reflection of the party's disapproval of Trump and some of the lingering divisions over how vigorously to oppose him -- there were also protests -- silent and loud -- during the speech.
32% : " "It's time to end this senseless war," Trump said.
30% : Trump claimed a divine mandate in the wake of the assassination attempt, as he has done previously.
29% : To high school senior Jason Hartley, whose father was killed as a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy when Jason was a child, Trump announced that he was accepted into West Point.
28% : Trump also devoted a chunk of his remarks to attempts to cut government spending, looking up in the gallery at Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who has headed up the U.S. DOGE Service efforts.
27% : As Trump walked past her, Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-New Mexico) held a small handwritten sign that read, "This is NOT Normal."
25% : Trump falsely stated that DOGE has found "hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud" -- it has claimed to cut $9 billion thus far, and even that number is in doubt -- and ticked through a range of projects around the world that he claimed no one cared about and in countries that no one has heard of.
22% : A few notably did not stand to applaud when Trump mentioned reciprocal tariffs kicking in next month.
22% : There were also relatives of Corey Comperatore, the former Pennsylvania firefighter who was killed during an assassination attempt on Trump last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania.
20% : Earlier on Tuesday, Trump's imposed tariffs on the nation's three top trading partners, which quickly triggered retaliation from China, Mexico, and Canada and unleashed a potentially economically devastating trade war and massive market losses.
20% : Trump also highlighted the low number of illegal border crossings and said his administration "has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history.
14% : The offer came after the Trump administration declared that Zelensky was not ready for peace and froze the U.S. military assistance that Ukraine has been relying on to battle the Russian invasion, and it came days after a hostile meeting in the Oval Office in which Zelensky argued with Trump and Vance.
12% : Trump addressed a divided nation in a speech marked by acrimony, as a Texas Democrat was escorted from the chamber within the first few moments and as Trump taunted Democrats in the room.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.