President Donald Trump will arrive on Capitol Hill tonight to share his vision for America’s next four years with Congress, the Supreme Court and the nation. 

His remarks before all of the nation’s people and politicos will be a seminal moment in the Republican’s still young second term.

It will also be an opportunity to address his congressional Democratic detractors, who have protested his DOGE initiative, his kicking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky out of the White House and his foreign aid freeze, directly. 

Within his first month, the president has deputized Elon Musk and DOGE to the top echelons of federal power, where they currently are working to dismantle what they deem as waste, fraud and abuse within the government. 

Already over 100 legal cases are challenging many of the Trump-Musk government reforms, according to AP.

‘I hope that the court system is going to allow us to do what we have to do,’ Trump said in February.

The deluge of presidential actions Trump has undertaken to begin reforming the federal organs has, so far, earned the president a positive approval rating, according to the RealClear Politics average.

So during his address Tuesday evening the president will look to turn up the heat on his adversaries, praise his confidants and keep the Trump train rolling. 

Flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and Speaker of the House Paul Ryan President Donald Trump delivers his Joint Address to Congress at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C. Tuesday February 28 2017. Trump will return to the House floor on Tuesday for another joint address to Congress

Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been working to slash government spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), though many have attacked the pair as their efforts have laid off thousands of federal workers

When does Trump’s joint address to Congress start?

Trump’s joint address to Congress will begin at 9 pm ET on Tuesday March, 4. 

DailyMail.com’s coverage of the event will run all day. 

Why is Trump’s joint address not called the State of the Union?

A joint address to Congress and a State of the Union address are very similar. 

However, as Trump has only been in power for about a month and a half, the president cannot really take credit for how the union is currently operating. 

Instead, a president’s first remarks before Congress during their term is just called a joint address. It is used by the commander-in-chief to layout his political agenda to the nation’s top lawmakers. 

Trump, having served as president before, is in a unique position to contrast his past tenure to that of Biden. He may compare and contrast his leadership to that of Biden. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, right, ripped up a copy of Trump’s speech after he gave his last State of the Union in February 2020

When is Trump’s State of the Union speech?

Trump’s next State of the Union speech is expected to happen in either February or March 2026. 

Who will attend Trump’s joint address to Congress?

The joint address will be attended by congressional lawmakers, Supreme Court justices, Trump administration officials and special guests invited by the politicians. 

Typically, the president invites special guests that have been impacted by their policies or have helped their campaigns. 

The family of Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student that was raped and killed by an illegal immigrant in 2024, and who is the namesake for an immigration reform bill passed during Trump’s first week, is expected to attend, a source familiar with the planning has told DailyMail.com. 

Democrats, meanwhile, are planning on inviting Americans negatively impacted by Trump’s agenda, like federal workers that have been laid off due to DOGE. 

Lawmakers and Supreme Court justices listen to Trump during his first joint address to Congress in February 2017

What will Trump say in his speech? 

Given that Trump has only been in office for a little over a month, he is expected to lay out his vision for ushering in America’s next ‘golden age.’ 

He will likely praise his friend Musk’s work at DOGE. The group has already cut an estimated $105 billion dollars in spending, according to the cost-cutting group’s site.

The Republican is also expected to talk about his efforts ramping up deportations and cutting back illegal immigration. 

There’s much he could say on the matter, after he promised to carry out the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, but he will almost certainly hone in on recent data from the Department of Homeland Security showing a massive drop in illegal crossings. 

In February 2025, there were just around 8,326 illegal border crossings, Trump claims. 

In February 2024, under Joe Biden, there were 190,000 encounters with migrants crossing the border.

A Border Patrol agent looks for footprints along the floating US border wall in Imperial County, California, 27 February, 2025. With Trump signing multiple executive actions to overhaul parts of the US immigration system, including how migrants are processed and deported, the southern border has seen a massive slow down in migrants trying to cross over

Trump has also announced a sweeping batch of tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada, saying they did not do enough to counter fentanyl smuggling into the U.S. 

His threats prompted officials from the later two to rush to Washington, but China has taken the tariffs on the chin. 

Canada announced the creation of the ‘fentanyl czar’ to appease the president, while Mexico deployed troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to clamp down on cartel operations. In exchange Trump delayed tariffs on Mexico and Canada for one month. 

That one month hiatus expires on Tuesday, so the president presumably will address whether or not he will move forward with the tariffs. 

Trump also has noted he may add an additional 10 percent tariff onto the existing 10 percent tariff China’s currently paying on Tuesday. 

Who will deliver the Democratic response?

Freshman Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin will deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s remarks following the joint address. 

Slotkin was formerly a member of the House of Representatives before winning a seat in the Senate in November.