America's Talking - Trump ‘Just Getting Started’ as He Talks Border, DOGE, Tariffs, More

Episode Date: March 7, 2025

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump addressed both the House and Senate Tuesday evening in a wide-ranging speech at about the six week-mark into his second term in office. Trump’s remarks come amidst a series of executive orders, a successful border crackdown, new tariffs, tumultuous foreign policy, and some lawsuits threatening to halt part of his progress. The president began his speech by touting his ambitious pace since taking office.Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_97039e66-f970-11ef-be0f-1f24d99e301d.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulb, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. President Donald Trump delivered the first address to Congress of his second term this week, touching on a large number of topics as the rapid pace of executive orders and other actions continue in his seventh week in office. One Democratic congressman was escorted out after disrupting the address and later censured, while most Democrats refuse to stand or cheer regardless the topic. Joining me to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief for the Center Square. Casey, as with most things, Trump, it was a partisan speech that Republicans celebrated and Democrats decried.

What are your top takeaways? This is a big win for Trump. He was able to tout a lot of his agenda. It showed that the Republican Party is very unified behind him. There's no doubt about that. They cheered for him. And, you know, there's a time not long ago when Republicans were split over Trump. And some, you know, in his first term, there were several who wanted to be never Trumpers and kind of have this resistance within the Republican Party.

There is none of that this time around. I mean, all but one of his Republicans in the House voted for Trump's tax cuts, which are going to, you know, raise the debt deficit by, you're the debt by several trillion. And not much was even said against it. I mean, there was a CBS News, UGov poll. they found 76% of those who watched the speech approved of it. 63% said he spent a lot of time on the issues they care about. Of course, Republicans liked it a lot more than Democrats. 68% said the speech made it feel hopeful.

54% made it, said it made them feel proud. And then much smaller percentages had negative, you know, emotions when watching the speech. So overall, big win, it showed unity. He was able to tout in his work on the border. What he's done with spending cuts, he had a long riff where he listed off a lot of ridiculous spending items that Doge has been cutting. And a lot of people left. I think that, you know, there was some Democratic protests and things, which I'm sure we're going to talk about. And I think he handled it very well.

He handled it with grace. It was an opportunity for Trump to take the bait and kind of become irate and start scolding them. But he showed restraint and it made him look presidential and it made the Democrats look petulant. On Doge, the new Department of Government efficiency that Elon Musk has oversight to, Democrats have been criticizing these doge cuts essentially from day one. But it's popular with Americans. When they hear about how their taxpayer dollars are being spent, there's some outreach there. There certainly is.

And Americans do just have, long before Trump, believe that the government is wasteful and that the cuts can be made. And I think some of these examples, you know, it's kind of amazing that Trump feel, he felt Ronald Reagan-esque in these moments, even though in many ways he's so different from Reagan. But he was up there making jokes about government waste in these reports. And I kept thinking, I'm watching Ronald Reagan right now. And he even had some very funny moments, like when he, that were Reagan as too, like when he said that, you know, some Americans on Social Security are living to, according to the federal records, 150, 200, even 300 years old, which of course is impossible. And he said, I guess we're a healthier country than I thought, Bobby, for speaking to Bobby Kennedy, who's in charge of, you know, health and

human services. And it was just a great joke. It felt like Reagan, a Reagan-esque line. And I think that combining these really aggressive policies with a little bit more of this humor and this softness from Trump is actually a very deadly combination for Republicans. It really showed there is some polling that shows that Americans are worried about moving too quickly with those and maybe using too much of a chainsaw and less of a scalpel. And I think you saw that reflected

this week when Trump said publicly that he wants people to use a scalpel despite Elon Musk coming out with a chainsaw at CPAC some kind of different messages. Musk has the chainsaw. Trump is saying the scalpel that he wants to use a scalpel and he wants the heads of agencies to do the cutting

and to not cut good people, whatever that means. I mean, of course, you don't want to cut good people, but if you're firing, you know, thousands of workers when you've only been at the agency for a few weeks, how do you really know who all the good people are? It's pretty tough to know, I think. So I think you're seeing some mixed messaging here, maybe a different approach from Musk or Trump.

Or maybe they both want the chainsaw, but Trump is just saying what, you know, trying to seem a little more wise, a little more presidential and use to scalp a language to put people's fears at ease. Another issue President Trump touched on that is also widely popular with Americans is banning biological males from female sports. It's another issue that Democrats are in the vast minority on. Well, what happened really, I mean, Democrat used to be like a 50, 50, more of 50, 50, 50, 50, 50, or 55, 45.

And just in the last, of the course of the last few years, it's just totally swung against Democrats. I think there is a major documentary from The Daily Wire called What is a Woman. And I think that really is a big part of what's, you know, pivoted the whole nation. And then once Democrats lost in 2020, for when Republicans ran so hard against transgenderism, they ran ads against it as swing states. They ran very hard against it. And then once Republicans won, that kind of changed the national idea of what is the general consensus. And I think that matters very much to Americans.

What is the general consensus? Because we are very democratically minded. And so once it became seen that, you know, this is what the majority of Americans thinks. And by the way, states are starting to ban it. There's more and more detransitioners coming out saying how horrific what happened to them was and even some doctors raising concerns. So all that is flip this issue. It's a winning issue for Republicans. So they're going to keep bringing it up, keep hammering it.

I think a lot of it too is this issue has changed because young women have stood up. But it was just older white men talking about this issue. didn't resonate. But when young women who had trophies taken from them started to speak out, I think that was a pivotal point. Republicans have captured it. And now they're just right in this political wave as long as they came. Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.