In his State of the Union address, President Trump offered few legislative priorities ahead of the November election, saying the Republican majorities in both chambers have already done “a great job.”
President Trump talks about tariffs in State of the Union address
In his State of the Union address, President Trump called the Supreme Court’s decision on tariffs a “disappointing decision.”
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump may only have one year left in his Republican-controlled Congress.
But it’s anyone’s guess what he wants to do with it and what is possible with a razor majority, especially if he wants to keep the Senate and House in Republican hands after the November midterm elections.
For starters, codifying global tariffs is probably off the table for the president following his painful defeat at the Supreme Court. Even after being reprimanded by Neil Gorsuch, a conservative judge he appointed to the court, to respect Congress’s authority on the issue, he told lawmakers in his State of the Union address on February 24 that he didn’t need Congress’ help.
“No action from Congress is needed” to keep the tariffs in place, he told a chamber packed with Republicans and few Democrats.
If this speech is any indication, President Trump may not feel the need to cooperate with Congress over the next year to prevent a potential Democratic takeover of the Capitol from derailing his remaining plans for a second term.
President Trump said he is already making efforts of his own to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, including through executive orders and regulatory actions. He has had plenty of time to ask the Legislature to pass voter ID legislation, known as the SAVE Act, and to reopen the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shut down for more than a dozen days due to an impasse over federal immigration enforcement reform.
But President Trump’s plea did not include the passage of another major domestic policy law similar to last summer’s so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Instead, the president used perhaps the year’s biggest stage — before voters cast their ballots, where, unlike in 2024, his name will not be on the list — to plead with Americans to see what his Republican colleagues have already done for them.
President Trump said, “Our Republican majority has set out a very successful policy.”
This reflected several political realities. First, Republicans retain full control of the Legislature by only a vanishing number of seats, and given historical trends, face long odds in the next election.
And for another, President Trump has repeatedly treated Congress as an obstacle to his bulldozer rather than a co-equal branch of government necessary for his administration’s success.
Even if President Trump himself has not laid out an ambitious vision for building the Capitol in 2026, Republican congressional leaders have not forgotten that November is running out. That’s why Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) has yet to fully bow to pressure from the White House to pass the SAVE Act, which would require Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. With the 60-vote threshold standing in the way of legislation, some lawmakers have floated plans to revive an old tool known as the talking filibuster to circumvent Senate rules.
That could leave lawmakers debating for weeks, eating up valuable time, Thun warned earlier this month.
“The big coin in the Senate is floor time,” he told reporters. “There’s only so much we can do. And there’s so much work to do.”
Zachary Schermele is a Congressional reporter for USA TODAY. You can email us at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and on Bluesky at @zachschermele.bsky.social..
