Democrats plan a different kind of response to Trump’s big speech

President Donald Trump will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday for the first time in five years. Democrats are determined not to make their response all about him.

That might come as a surprise for those who remember what ensued during Trump’s first term. His congressional addresses became a prominent stage for the Democratic resistance, with lawmakers booing, chanting and walking out at times. Many chose outfits and invited guests to make a point. Most famously, in 2020, then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up a copy of Trump’s speech while seated directly behind him on the dais.

This time, many Democrats are signaling they’ll take a less pugilistic stance — the latest sign that the party is still coming to terms with how to confront the president, even as the party base grows increasingly restless.

“In 2017, a lot of us felt like Donald Trump was an anomaly. In 2025, he won the election. Everybody knows who he is. He said what he was going to do, and the country still voted for him, so I think we have to be very strategic as Democrats,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.).

That strategy, 10 Democratic lawmakers said in interviews, is to use the speech to focus on the impacts of Trump’s second-term policies. Some are bringing guests to highlight the Trump administration’s radical overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, including union leaders, laid-off government workers and others affected by the federal funding freeze.

“Just a protest isn't going to win us the next election,” Bera said. “Instead, we should say, ‘Look, that's what he's doing.’”

Several Democrats said they were just as interested in highlighting the cuts implemented by the Department of Government Efficiency, run by billionaire hatchet man Elon Musk, as they were in shining a light on Trump himself.

In fact, private guidance sent to Democratic lawmakers and obtained by POLITICO urged them to coalesce around a message that “Democrats are on the side of the American people while Trump and Republicans in Congress stand with Elon Musk and billionaire donors.” They are also being urged to “bring a guest who has been harmed by the Trump administration’s early actions or will be hurt by the House Republican budget.”

Notably, there does not appear to be a mass Democratic boycott of Trump’s speech in the works, as there was in past years. Rather than skip the speech, some Democrats said they wanted to show that Trump faces opposition — the image of seated, stern-faced Democrats while Republicans stand and cheer. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said it was important that the viewing public “sees a significant presence of us there.”

It’s not a universal sentiment. Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.), who represents a substantial population of federal employees in his suburban district just outside Washington, said he’ll skip the speech after attending addresses during Trump’s first term.

“The notion of half my colleagues rising and standing and enormous clapping for … things that I think are terrible for the American people every couple minutes will not be funny,” he said. “I don't see that I'll contribute anything to the event.”

Tuesday’s speech is not technically a State of the Union, but it will go off with much of the same pomp and circumstance. Trump is widely expected to use the speech as a theatrical spectacle not only to show off his overhaul of the federal government and his dismantling of Democratic priorities but to create viral moments that will delight his MAGA base. (In 2020, for instance, he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to talk show host Rush Limbaugh live from the rostrum.)

Democratic leaders are indicating they will not take the bait as they try to keep the focus on Trump’s policies and the cost of living. They chose Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan to deliver the party’s official response — a lawmaker who ran a disciplined campaign last year focusing on economic issues and won a state where Trump also prevailed.

Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) has been tapped to give a Spanish-language response, with party leaders signaling that he, too, could be discussing economic issues. The progressive Working Families Party has Rep. Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.) delivering a separate left-flank rebuttal.

Asked about the speech, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Thursday that Trump needed to answer the questions: “Why has he failed to do anything to lower the high cost of living in the United States of America, and why has the Trump administration unleashed far-right extremism on the American people in a way that represents an assault on the American way of life?”

Large-scale disruption is still unlikely. Some lawmakers have privately discussed walking out as an entire caucus during the speech or wearing pink hats in protest, but there’s less enthusiasm for such demonstrations than in past years.

That’s not to say lawmakers aren’t upset. Many Democrats are still figuring out how to channel their anger with Trump over lingering memories of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection and fresher emotions over his pardons of the rioters, along with the president's continued dismantling of cherished federal programs.

“He’s so much more abusive, but my job is to be there,” said Rep. Norma Torres (D-Calif.), who is bringing as her guest a fire chief from her southern California district to highlight planned FEMA cuts.

One more conspicuous gesture of protest will come from members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, which will be making a statement with their choice of clothing, according to Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.), the group’s chair. It’s a reprise of a gesture they employed during the first Trump term, when they wore white to honor suffragettes.

“Women across this country are furious,” she said. “And so I think we're going to bring that fury to the State of the Union in creative ways, and we're going to make sure that Trump knows and that Americans who are watching understand Trump's America.”

At least one prominent Trump antagonist could be among them: Pelosi plans to attend, according to a spokesperson.

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