On Wednesday morning, it remained evident ABC, CBS, and NBC were still largely uninterested in and almost seemed burdened by having to cover Tuesday night’s address by President Trump to a joint session of Congress. It predictably lacked the ebullience from their takes on Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union, but also the outright hostility from the four speeches in Trump’s first term.
Unsurprisingly, however, ABC’s Good Morning America still led the way in finding things to complain about, even if it felt like they were going through the motions.
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos decried Trump’s “combative address” that was “the most polarizing” presidential address ever to a joint session of Congress and naturally “taunted Democrats”.
Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce similarly huffed about Trump having delivered “one of the most combative” speeches to Congress in American history, putting “deep divisions...on full display.”
Instead of criticizing the lack of Democrat decorum, Bruce merely stated “the chamber [was] divided from the start” with Congressman Al Green (D-TX) “heckling the President, shaking his cane at him” before being removed.
“The President taunted his opponents, highlighting his policies with many false allegations and claims,” she added (though she did mention Trump’s emotional recognition of D.J. Daniel)
Chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl opined Americans have “grown accustomed to partisan state of the union addresses, deeply divided reactions, but this, George, really did hit a new level” with Republicans “more fervent in their support for Donald Trump” while the disjointed Democrats reflected their voters.
Karl and senior political correspondent Rachel Scott continued to kick dirt (click “expand”):
SCOTT: Leader Jeffries did call for decorum. He asked for a dignified Democrat response. It’s unclear if he’s going to be satisfied with what Democrats did there, and it was on full display, the sort of disjointed effort from Democrats really trying to figure out how to counter the President’s message. So, yes, Al green standing up, him being removed, we have never seen something like that play out during the chamber when the President is addressing a joint session of Congress and then, not just that. Democrats also walking out. At some points, their backs turned, in some ways trying to do silent protest, holding up these paddles. Regardless, George, this is a Democratic Party that is really trying to find their footing with very little leverage overall with Republicans in control of both the Senate and the House.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And, Jon, the President advancing his agenda, but not — no new policies really in the speech last night.
KARL: No, this felt much more like a rally speech. And I also thought it was interesting, George. There’s a lot of anxiety in the country. Anxiety from federal workers worried about their jobs. Anxiety about the tariffs he’s just imposed fear. Anxiety around the world about what happened in the Oval Office with Zelenskyy. Trump did not seem to be anxious about anything. This is a President, who for the first time in his time as President, is not under investigation and does not seem to have a care in the world.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Rachel, familiar exaggerations from the President.
SCOTT: Yeah and really a lack of reaching across the aisle. He bashed the bipartisan chips deal. He took a dig at the immigration and border security bill that his own party negotiated. And really not even mentioning one big thing: government funding. The government’s set to run out of funding in less than a week[.]
Pivoting to CBS Mornings, co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King made sure to highlight the network’s flash poll of speech viewers and that 76 percent approved of it, but had the caveat “that the viewership of these speeches is higher among the President’s party.”
Chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes called Tuesday “a boisterous night” with a speech featuring “a lot of the hallmarks of a Trump campaign speech” that she fretted meant a “combative” tone and lacked “any of the overtures to the other side that you might typically see in a Joint Address to Congress.”
“Democrats, it has to be said, engaged in some theatrics too, another departure from the norm and a sign that no one has high hopes for bipartisanship in the four years ahead,” she added.
Cordes also attempted a fact-check (click “expand”):
CORDES: As Trump ticked off the highlights, some ticked off Democrats held up signs that said “false,” and some of his claims were false, including this one:
TRUMP: I terminated the ridiculous green new scam.
CORDES: That policy doesn’t exist.
TRUMP: We ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate.
CORDES: That policy also doesn’t exist.
TRUMP: Joe Biden, the worst president in American history.
CORDES: In a departure from tradition, Trump repeatedly slammed his predecessor.
TRUMP: Joe Biden, especially, let the price of eggs get out of control.
CORDES: Many Democrats walked out.
HOUSE SPEAKER MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The Chair now directs the Sergeant-at-Arms to restore order. [SHOUTING]
Along with a nod to the arrest of the alleged Abbey Gate terror attack mastermind, Mohammad Sharifullah, Cordes meandered through a rather straightforward, uneventful recap and gave way to Face the Nation host Magaret Brennan’s analysis.
Brennan complained that Trump’s speech lacked “specificity” and was high on “anger in the room” even though they “often are partisan.” Outside of that, she stuck to her usual turf of foreign policy with more on the speech’s passages about Ukraine and Sharifullah.
NBC’s Today picked up the network’s observation from the night before with co-host Savannah Guthrie saying Trump “emphasiz[ed] culture war issues such as transgender rights and diversity programs” and that “many Democrats...protest[ed] through the address.”
Chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander said Tuesday night was “at times, theatrical, often combative” in “celebrating his political comeback” and “lean[ed] heavily into culture war issues, attacking transgender rights and DEI programs.”
It was also staid, aside from the acknowledgment at the end that Trump made “a series of false and exaggerating claims as well, insisting among other things, that DOGE has found hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud, which is a crime but he’s provided no evidence[.]”
Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker said Trump “was defiant” in having “revived some of his old grievances and took aim at his political rivals and I thought it was notable he spent 20 minutes leaning into the culture wars,” but noted it was a successful plank of his campaign.
After some rehashing of the tariffs storyline, Guthrie turned to the Democrats and lambasted them as a party “in the wilderness” and “all over the place in terms of” responding to Trump both in general and “right there in the hall.”
“I think the optics, all of the disparate optics...are, to some extent, emblematic of the big debate...in the Democratic Party. Senator Elissa Slotkin...tried to talk about the economy. She said to Americans, you comfortable with Elon Musk being in all of your personal data? We’ll have to see if that connects with voters,” Welker replied, to which senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson said could be an opening.
In the second hour, Alexander finally brought up Sharifullah’s arrest.
To see the relevant March 5 transcripts, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
