Trump Defends Agenda In Combative Address

The NPR Politics Podcast

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Politics, Daily News, News

4.5 • 24.9K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

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Summary

In the longest address of its kind before Congress in recent memory, President Trump laid out his policy objectives on the economy, immigration, foreign policy & other topics. He was repeatedly critical of Democrats & his predecessor, Joe Biden. One Democratic congressman was escorted out of the House chamber after heckling Trump, and the Democratic Party's response delivered by Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) largely discussed how her party differs with Trump on economic and foreign policy issues.

Read NPR's fact-check of President Trump's speech.

This episode: political correspondent Sarah McCammon, White House correspondent Asma Khalid, and political correspondent Susan Davis.

The podcast is produced by Bria Suggs & Kelli Wessinger and edited by Casey Morell. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from Wondery.
0:02.4	Scam Factory, the explosive new podcast series, exposes a multi-billion dollar criminal empire,
0:08.2	where thousands are being forced to scam others under the threat of death.
0:11.8	Follow Scam Factory wherever you get your podcasts.
0:18.6	Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the White House.
0:25.3	And I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. It is 1147 p.m. Eastern Time on Tuesday, March 4, 2025.
0:33.3	And earlier tonight, President Trump gave a joint address to Congress. As soon as the president
0:38.3	arrived in the House chamber, the tone and tenor of things was noticeably different than many
0:43.4	previous similar speeches. Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation and chanted USA as he
0:50.2	approached the lectern. Some Democrats skipped the event altogether, and those who were there
0:55.6	were largely silent and seated. That is, until the speech started. Mr. Green, take your seat.
1:02.5	Take your seat, sir. Take your seat. Find it that members continue to engage in willful and concerted disruption of proper decorum,
1:14.0	the chair now directs the sergeant-at-arms to restore order.
1:19.6	Remove this gentleman from the chamber.
1:22.2	So that was early on in Trump's speech when House Speaker Mike Johnson directed the sergeant at arms
1:27.4	to remove Congressman Al Green, a Democrat from Texas, from the chamber for interrupting Trump, after Trump said he and Republicans had won a mandate to govern.
1:38.3	This was quite a moment, wasn't it? Yeah, look, I don't think that interruptions of the president during a speech like this, a state of the union or a joint address, are that atypical anymore?
1:48.2	I think going back to Barack Obama's presidency, where Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina very famously shouted, you lie at him.
1:55.7	And that was a moment that was seen as sort of breaking with historical decorum.
2:00.5	But I got to say, ever since then,
2:02.5	it's almost been a bit of a feature of these events to have some element of the minority party,
2:09.1	for lack of a better word, heckle, where I think that Al Green took it to a new level was he refused
	...

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