Just before President Donald Trump took the podium to deliver his address to a joint session of Congress, Democratic Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett sent a message loud and clear: He is “not like us.” Crockett, dancing and lip-syncing to Kendrick Lamar’s culture-defining hit, later punctuated her defiance with a pointed jab. “Well… the State of the ‘DisUnion’ will begin shortly,” Crockett noted. “I’m gonna be in attendance.” It was just one of many signs of resistance from Democrats who braced for what they predicted would be an address filled with misinformation and political grandstanding. Undeterred, Crockett implored her millions of social media followers, “Do not watch.”
The defiance extended beyond rhetoric. House Democratic leadership refused to participate in the traditional escort committee that brings the president into the House chamber, a symbolic rebuke of Trump’s presidency. A spokesperson for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the move “speaks for itself.” It was a notable departure from the morning’s strategy session, during which Jeffries and his leadership team urged House Democrats to focus on Americans suffering under Trump’s policies. However, when Trump took the stage, unity gave way to unfiltered outrage. Trump entered the chamber, flanked by Speaker Mike Johnson, determined to present his administration as a sweeping success. The reality outside his rhetoric told a different story.
Days before the address, Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance engaged in a heated and globally embarrassing Oval Office confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rocking the international community. The exchange reinforced concerns that Trump is abandoning Ukraine in favor of his well-documented admiration for Russian leader Vladimir Putin. On the domestic front, his administration has dismantled civil rights protections, slashed federal jobs, and thrown millions into uncertainty. Yet, standing before Congress, Trump claimed that more Americans believe the country is on the right track for the first time in modern history. “Now, for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction,” Trump declared. That was false.
Of the eighteen “right track/wrong track” polls archived by RealClearPolitics since Trump took office, only two showed more respondents believing the country was moving in the right direction—one by Rasmussen with a one-point margin and another by Emerson College with a four-point edge. Meanwhile, sixteen other polls showed the opposite, some revealing double-digit margins. The RealClearPolitics average showed a nearly nine-point lead for “wrong track.” Yet Trump stood before the American people and claimed victory. The speech had barely begun when Rep. Al Green of Texas stood in the aisle, waving his cane at the president. Lawmakers responded with cheers and boos, forcing Speaker Johnson to issue repeated warnings for decorum.
“Members are engaging in willful and continuing breach of the quorum, and the chair is prepared to direct the Sergeant at Arms to restore order to the joint session,” Johnson declared. He then ordered Green’s removal from the chamber. While Republicans erupted in applause throughout Trump’s speech, Democrats sat stone-faced. Some took it further, removing their jackets to reveal messages emblazoned in white on their backs. Some read, “Resist.” Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost’s shirt said, “No More Kings.” At the start of Trump’s speech, Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan held up a whiteboard with the words, “That’s a Lie.”
Some Democrats refused to attend the address altogether. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York announced her absence on social media. “I’m not going to the Joint Address. I will be live posting and chatting with you all here instead. Then going on IG Live after,” she wrote. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut also dismissed Trump’s speech as a “MAGA pep rally” and chose to spend the evening at an event with MoveOn. “We have to fight every single day, every single day,” Murphy proclaimed. Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont also made her position clear. “I watched him take an oath to uphold and protect the Constitution, and all he did was spew lies, stoke division, and make no effort to unify our country. I won’t sit and watch him lie to the American people again,” she asserted. Despite his claims, Trump failed to offer any real economic plan.
He blamed Biden for inflation while ignoring that his tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico are set to raise prices even further, a reality already confirmed by economists. Yet he promised “dramatic and immediate relief” while enacting policies that would do the opposite. At one point, Trump took credit for ending the so-called “weaponized government,” portraying himself as the victim. “And we’ve ended weaponized government where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent. Like me,” he said. Republicans cheered. Beyond the speech’s theatrics, the real story remains the fallout of Trump’s second term. Civil rights protections have been dismantled. Federal workers have been fired en masse. Veterans and people with disabilities have been left scrambling. MAGA loyalists have received unchecked power. And yet, the president stood before Congress and told Americans everything was fine. Rep. Crockett, however, was not having it.
She fired back without hesitation when asked if she had anything to say to Trump. “Grow a spine and stop being Putin’s hoe,” Crockett railed, using language that proved common in an earlier meeting between CBC members and Black journalists. The apparent divide in the chamber became more undeniable as television cameras panned across the room. Republicans stood, grinning, basking in Trump’s promises. Democrats, many dressed in bright pink as a deliberate display of protest, sat in silence. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, explained the color choice. “Pink is a color of power and protest.,” she said “It’s time to rev up the opposition and come at Trump loud and clear.” By the time Trump’s speech ended, one thing was clear. Democrats aren’t backing down. They aren’t standing idly by as Trump and his enablers attempt to rewrite reality. They aren’t going to pretend that what’s happening to this country is normal. As Trump walked out of the chamber, the message left behind by Democrats and on the backs of those standing in defiance said it all. “Resist.”