WASHINGTON — When President Trump enters the House chamber Tuesday night to deliver his State of the Union address, he will do so amid the most pronounced tensions between the executive branch and the two other branches of government in modern American political history.
The friction has been building for months, but sharpened dramatically in recent days.
On Friday, Trump berated the six Supreme Court justices who ruled against his use of unilateral “emergency” tariffs — a significant legal defeat for the White House — calling those members of the high court “very unpatriotic and disloyal to the Constitution.”
By custom, justices who choose to attend the president’s address occupy the front rows of the chamber. In 2025, four attended. Those who come Tuesday will take their seats just one day after Trump renewed his public criticism of the court, which is dominated by Republican appointees.
“Let our supreme court keep making decisions that are so bad and deleterious to the future of our Nation,” he wrote in a social media post on Monday as the court considers several high-stakes cases in the weeks ahead involving the White House.
The president has repeatedly shown similar regard for the Republican Congress, relying on executive orders to implement policy without buy-in from the legislative branch, lambasting the Senate for not weakening filibuster rules to ease passage of a bill requiring nationwide voter ID in federal elections, chafing at congressional oversight attempts and belittling the idea that he should seek lawmakers’ help to implement his agenda — a notion that returned to the fore after Friday’s tariff ruling.
“As President, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” he wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
In October, after the passage of his “One Big Beautiful Act” reconciliation package, Trump seemed to suggest that he no longer needed Congress to advance his economic agenda, saying the bill’s approval “got everything done.”
“I said, ‘Put it all into one bill, and if we get it done, we’re done for four years.’ We don’t need anything more from Congress in terms of that,” Trump said.
Typically, a president’s State of the Union speech marks a chance for the White House to adjust its mission and square up its agenda for the months ahead. Trump, however, shows few signs of changing his approach — even as he confronts a cascade of challenges, ranging from lackluster GDP numbers and stubborn inflation, to scandals unearthed by the Justice Department’s release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, to the looming threat of a military campaign against Iran. Through it all, voter dissatisfaction has mounted: A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday found 60% of U.S. adults disapprove of his job performance — his highest disapproval in five years.
At times, the White House’s own conflicting messaging has complicated the path toward public approval and understanding of its posture. In late December, during a primetime speech from the White House, Trump claimed that last summer’s military strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities “destroyed the Iran nuclear threat.” Now, as Trump openly mulls operationalizing military assets against Iran again — possibly as soon as this week — White House special envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News that Iran is “probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb-making material.” The president’s commitment to Ukraine’s defenses also remains under scrutiny. Last year in his joint session speech, Trump signaled confidence in his negotiations ahead with Russia. “We’ve had serious discussions with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace,” he remarked. “Wouldn’t that be beautiful?” Tuesday, though, will mark the fourth anniversary since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine — an end to which has eluded the administration. Trump has overcome political isolation before in the aftermath of his 2020 defeat, the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol and his ensuing retreat to Palm Beach, Florida. Now, one year into his second term, he has increasingly suggested that he alone can chart the country’s course. On Tuesday night, he will make that case to a chamber that is no longer certain it agrees — and a public that is growing less so.
Vaughn Hillyard is a senior White House reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
