(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump took a victory lap in an address to Congress on Tuesday, drawing catcalls and interruptions from some Democratic lawmakers who held up signs and walked out mid-speech in protest.
The partisan rancor was reflective of the tumult that has accompanied Trump's first six weeks in office upending U.S. foreign policy, igniting a trade war with close allies and slashing the federal workforce.
The primetime speech, his first to Congress since taking office on January 20, capped a second day of market turmoil after he imposed sweeping new tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China.
At 100 minutes, the speech was the longest presidential address to Congress in modern U.S. history, according to The American Presidency Project.
The speech was reminiscent of Trump's campaign rallies though he largely avoided his habit of straying from prepared remarks to deliver asides. The president assailed his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, attacked immigrant criminals as "savages" and what he called "transgender ideology."
He vowed to balance the federal budget, even as he urged lawmakers to enact a sweeping tax cut agenda that nonpartisan analysts say could add more than $5 trillion to the federal government's $36 trillion debt load. Congress will need to act to raise the nation's debt ceiling later this year or risk a devastating default.
World leaders were watching Trump's speech closely, a day after he paused all military aid to Ukraine. The suspension followed an Oval Office blowup in which Trump angrily upbraided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in front of TV cameras.
Trump said Zelenskiy wrote him a letter on Tuesday saying Ukraine was prepared to sign a rare earth minerals deal that had been left in limbo by their clash.
"Simultaneously, we've had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace," Trump said. "Wouldn't that be beautiful?"
The pause in aid threatened Kyiv's efforts to defend against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion three years ago, and further rattled European leaders worried that Trump is moving the U.S. too far toward Moscow.
While Trump has appeared to fault Ukraine for starting the war, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found 70% of Americans - including two-thirds of Republicans - say Russia was more to blame.
DEMOCRATIC PROTESTS
"To my fellow citizens, America is back," Trump began to a standing ovation from fellow Republicans. "Our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again."
Democrats held up signs with messages like "No King" and "This Is NOT Normal," and dozens walked out mid-speech.
One Texas congressman, Al Green, was ordered removed after he refused to sit down.
"The chair now directs the sergeant at arms to restore order. Remove this gentleman from the chamber," Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said after warning Democrats to maintain decorum.
[1/21]WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 04: U.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee/Pool via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
Green, shaking his walking cane at Trump, appeared to be shouting that Trump did not win a mandate in November's election after the president bragged about the Republicans' victories. As Green was led from the chamber, some Republicans sang, "Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, goodbye."
Trump, a political brawler by nature, appeared to revel in the disagreements.
"I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud," he said after Green's ejection.
Trump spoke in the House of Representatives, where lawmakers huddled in fear for their lives a little over four years ago while a mob of Trump supporters ransacked the Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to overturn Democrat Joe Biden's 2020 victory over the then-incumbent Trump.
The president praised billionaire businessman Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which has downsized more than 100,000 federal workers, cut billions of dollars in foreign aid and shuttered entire agencies.
Trump credited Musk with identifying "hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud," a claim that far exceeds even what the administration has claimed so far. Musk, seated in the gallery, received ovations from Republicans.
MORE TARIFFS COMING
Trump reiterated his intention to impose additional reciprocal tariffs on April 2, a move that would likely roil financial markets even more.
"Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it's our turn to start using them against those other countries," he said.
On this point, many Republicans remained seated, a signal of how Trump's tariffs have divided his party.
Trump's 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, two of the country's closest allies, and an additional 10% on Chinese imports deepened investor concerns about the economy. The Nasdaq Composite is down more than 9% from its record closing high on December 16, near the 10% decline commonly called a market correction.
Trump, who has often taken credit for market increases, did not mention this week's downturn in his speech. He also barely mentioned stubbornly high prices, blaming Biden and saying he was "fighting every day" to lower costs.
Just one in three Americans approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, a potential danger sign amid worries his tariffs could increase inflation.
Trump urged Congress to extend his 2017 tax cuts. Congressional Republicans have advanced a sweeping $4.5 trillion plan that would extend the tax cuts, tighten border security and fund a huge increase in deportations.
The proposal calls for $2 trillion in spending reductions over a decade, with possible cuts to education, healthcare and other social services.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Trump's full tax agenda, including elimination of taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits, could cost between $5 trillion and $11.2 trillion over a decade.
A spartanly furnished web page with columns of numbers and bar charts on a dark background is the only official window into billionaire Elon Musk's effort to slash U.S. government spending and the size of the federal workforce. However, the view it offers of the cost-cutting enterprise is often muddied by major errors.
President Donald Trump and Musk's Department of Government Efficiency say that in just six weeks they have already saved American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars through rapid-fire moves to cancel contracts, fire workers and root out fraud and waste in the government.
The only support for the assertions comes from data posted by DOGE to a newly created website that went live last month. But in the last two weeks alone, DOGE has deleted hundreds of claimed savings, including some of the largest items it had previously boasted about.
Trump lauded the group's work in his address to Congress on Tuesday, claiming Musk's group had identified "hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud," far more than what the administration had previously claimed.
"We've taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation," Trump said.
DOGE claims to have slashed $105 billion so far, but it is impossible to verify that calculation because the unit has so far posted a detailed breakdown for only a fraction of those savings, and that accounting keeps changing, according to a Reuters analysis of the data.
Musk has said he is operating transparently in his cost-cutting effort, but budget experts like Martha Gimbel, director of the Budget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan budget analysis organization at Yale University, disagree.
"Anyone can put numbers and words on a website," Gimbel said in an interview. "In order to be transparent, the numbers and words have to be accurate. They've already been shown not to be accurate so why should I trust it?"
A DOGE spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment. But Musk has acknowledged that mistakes will be made and will be corrected when they are discovered.
THE `WALL OF RECEIPTS`
DOGE has provided the most details about the contracts it says it has terminated, listing them on what it calls a "wall of receipts" meant to show its work to the public.
Errors in that accounting appeared from the start. It took credit for eliminating contracts that had already ended, sometimes years ago, and inflated the value of other items that it had axed, the Reuters analysis found.
The first time DOGE posted a list of canceled contracts to its website, in mid-February, it added up to about $16 billion. By Monday, the total had dropped to under $8.9 billion.
A canceled contract DOGE said had saved taxpayers $8 billion was only worth $8 million. In another instance it triple counted a $655 million contract, claiming more than $1.8 billion in savings that did not exist.
Last week it deleted from the website all five of the biggest savings it had claimed.
"I'm all for eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, but there's no veracity in what they're saying because you can't quantify it in any way," said Bill Hoagland, a former Republican staffer and director of the Senate Budget Committee for more than 20 years.
DOGE is not a government agency but a temporary advisory team that has been given enormous power by Trump to drastically reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy.
To be sure DOGE has made major cuts to parts of the federal bureaucracy since Trump created it six weeks ago. It has entered about 20 government agencies, hollowing out some of them, helped to fire at least 25,000 government workers, and persuaded another 75,000 to take buyouts, out of the 2.3 million-strong civilian federal workforce. It has also canceled thousands of contracts.
Yet government spending is actually higher in Trump's first month in office than in the same period a year ago, when former President Joe Biden was in office.
In its latest update this week, DOGE either modified or removed more than 1,000 entries on its list, nearly half of the spending arrangements it had listed the week before, the Reuters examination of its records found.
In some cases, it changed its estimate of how much taxpayers had saved; in other cases, it stopped listing the contracts altogether. As of Monday, DOGE's accounting shows that 941 of the 2,300 contracts it cut saved no money at all.
Democrats protested President Donald Trump's address to Congress on Tuesday with signs reading "No King!" and "Save Medicaid," with some turning their backs on the Republican as he spoke and one lawmaker marched out by security.
Representative Al Green of Texas, a Democrat who plans to introduce articles of impeachment against Trump, loudly interrupted the speech in its first minutes by shouting that Trump did not have a mandate to cut safety net programs.
Republicans are trying to pass a spending bill that could significantly slash spending on popular social programs, including the Medicaid health insurance plan for low-income people, to pay for Trump's desired tax cut plan.
House Speaker Mike Johnson ordered the sergeant-at-arms to remove Green from the chamber, and Republicans cheered as Green relented - waving his cane in the air - and was led out.
Green told reporters afterward, "It's worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president's desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security."
With Republicans holding majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate, any impeachment effort against Trump is unlikely to advance.
Around a third of the Democrats' side of the chamber had emptied as Trump's address crossed the threshold to become the longest such speech on record at an hour and 30 minutes. The rest quickly departed as Republicans gave Trump a standing ovation when the speech ended after 100 minutes.
Trump dismissed their concerns.
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 04: Democrats hold protest signs as U.S. President Donald Trump address a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. Win McNamee/Pool via REUTERS Purchase Licensing Rights
"I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud, nothing I can do," Trump said. "These people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements."
A Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Tuesday showed that 44% of Americans approve of Trump's job performance so far, with 51% disapproving.
Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas and others turned their backs as Trump spoke, revealing messages like "Resist" and "No Kings live here" on the backs of their shirts before exiting.
Some stared bleakly, had their face in their hands or were looking at their phones. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon held up a Ukrainian flag as Trump launched into brief remarks about foreign policy.
Others held up small round signs that read "Save Medicaid," "Protect Veterans" and "Musk Steals," in reference to the drastic cost-cutting actions of billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
Representative Rashida Tlaib of Michigan carried a white board, on which she scribbled different messages in response to Trump's words, including "No King!"
Representative Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico, the top Democrat on the House DOGE subcommittee who has insisted that Musk testify before lawmakers about his agency's actions, held up a sign behind Trump as he walked into the chamber.
"This is not normal," it read.
Republican Representative Lance Gooden of Texas snatched it from her and tossed it into the air.