President Donald Trump arrives this week on Capitol Hill to deliver a speech to Congress, a coequal branch of government he has bulldozed past his first month in office, wielding unimaginable executive power to get what he wants, at home and abroad.
The Tuesday night address will unfold in the chamber where lawmakers crouched in fear four years ago while a mob of his supporters roamed the halls, and where Nancy Pelosi, Liz Cheney and others vowed to prevent him from ever holding office again. It’s the same House chamber where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a hero’s welcome for fighting off Russia’s invasion, in the first year of that war.
Since his reelection, Trump has blazed across the federal government, dismantling not just norms and traditions but the very government itself. With billionaire aide Elon Musk by his side, he is firing thousands of federal workers, closing agencies established by law and publicly badgering Zelenskyy while positioning the U.S. closer to Russia.
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