Nation Awaits Trump's State of Union   02/23 06:29

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump will stand before Congress on 
Tuesday to deliver the annual State of the Union address to a suddenly 
transformed nation.

   One year back in office, Trump has emerged as a president defying 
conventional expectations. He has executed a head-spinning agenda, upending 
priorities at home, shattering alliances abroad and challenging the nation's 
foundational system of checks and balances. Two Americans were killed by 
federal agents while protesting the Trump administration's immigration raids 
and mass deportations.

   As the lawmakers sit in the House chamber listening to Trump's agenda for 
the year ahead, the moment is an existential one for the Congress, which has 
essentially become sidelined by his expansive reach, the Republican president 
bypassing his slim GOP majority to amass enormous power for himself.

   "It's crazy," said Nancy Henderson Korpi, a retiree in northern Minnesota 
who joined an Indivisible protest group and plans to watch the speech from 
home. "But what is disturbing more to me is that Congress has essentially just 
handed over their power."

   She said, "We could make some sound decisions and changes if Congress would 
do their job."

   The state of the union is upheaval

   The country is at a crossroads, celebrating its 250th anniversary while 
experiencing some of the most significant changes to its politics, policies and 
general mood in many Americans' lifetimes.

   The president muscled his agenda through Congress when he needed to -- often 
pressuring lawmakers with a phone call during cliffhanger votes -- but more 
often avoided the messy give-and-take of the legislative process to power past 
his own party and the often unified Democratic opposition.

   Trump's signature legislative accomplishment so far is the GOP's big tax 
cuts bill, with its new savings accounts for babies, no taxes on tips and other 
specialty deductions, and steep cuts to Medicaid and SNAP food aid. It also 
fueled more than $170 billion to Homeland Security for his immigration 
deportations.

   But the GOP-led Congress has largely stood by as Trump dramatically seized 
power through hundreds of executive actions, many being challenged in court, 
and a willingness to do whatever it takes to impose his agenda.

   "Retrieving a lost power is no easy business in our constitutional order," 
wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch in the Supreme Court's landmark rebuke of Trump's 
tariffs policy on Friday.

   Gorsuch said that without the court stepping in on major questions, "Our 
system of separated powers and checks-and-balances threatens to give way to the 
continual and permanent accretion of power in the hands of one man."

   Trump goes it alone, with or without Congress

   From slashing the federal workforce to upending the childhood vaccine 
schedule to attacking Venezuela and capturing that country's president, Trump's 
reach appeared to know no bounds.

   His administration launched investigations of would-be political foes, 
imposed his name on historic buildings, including the storied John F. Kennedy 
Center for the Performing Arts, and perhaps most visibly has been rounding up 
people and converting warehouses into detention holding centers for 
deportations.

   At almost every step of the way, there were moments when Congress could have 
intervened but did not.

   Democrats, in the minority, often tried to push back, including by halting 
routine Homeland Security funds unless there are restraints on the immigration 
actions.

   But Republicans believe the country elected the president and gave their 
party control of Congress to align with his agenda, according to one senior GOP 
leadership aide who insisted on anonymity to discuss the dynamic.

   House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has said Trump will be the "most 
consequential" president of the modern era.

   Democrats plan to either boycott the speech or sit in stony silence.

   "The state of the union is falling apart," said House Democratic Leader 
Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

   Congress asserts itself, at times

   There have been times when Congress held its own against the White House, 
but they have been rare -- as in the high-profile bipartisan push from Reps. 
Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Ca., to force the release of the 
Jeffrey Epstein files, over the objections of Johnson and GOP leadership.

   The flex of congressional power has more often come from a few renegade 
Republicans joining with most Democrats to put a check on the president, as 
when the House voted to block Trump's tariffs on Canada. The Senate advanced a 
war powers resolution to prevent military action in Venezuela without 
congressional approval, but backed off after Trump intervened.

   Those have been mostly symbolic votes, because Congress would not have the 
numbers to overcome any expected Trump veto.

   More often, the Congress has accommodated Trump, by rolling back already 
approved bipartisan funding for USAID foreign aid or public broadcasting or 
failing to stop the U.S. military strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats that 
killed two survivors in the Caribbean. When Trump issued a Day One pardon of 
some 1,500 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, the 
Republicans in Congress did not object.

   And as Trump's Department of Government Efficiency with billionaire Elon 
Musk started firing federal workers, GOP lawmakers signaled approval by forming 
their own DOGE caucus on Capitol Hill.

   "The central question for us is does the public understand what's at stake" 
said Max Stier, CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit 
organization focused on government management and democracy. "We are in the 
midst of the most significant transformation of our government and our public 
servants in our history as a country."

   He said some 300,000 federal employees were fired or moved on, while 100,000 
new hires or rehires have largely gone to Homeland Security.

   Checks and balances are being challenged

   In courtrooms across the country, cases are being filed against the 
administration at record levels, as Congress was "asleep at the wheel," said 
Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward, which has filed more than 150 
cases against the administration, part of the largest legal effort against an 
executive branch in U.S. history.

   But the judicial system has been under strain, and the White House has not 
always abided by court rulings. GOP lawmakers have joined Trump's criticism of 
the courts, displaying outside their offices posters of judges they want to 
impeach.

   A next big test will be over a proof-of-citizenship voting bill that Trump 
wants ahead of the midterm elections.

   The House has passed the SAVE America Act, which would require birth 
certificates or passports to register to vote in federal elections and a photo 
ID at the polls. Supporters say it's needed to crack down on fraud, while 
critics argue it will shut millions of Americans out of voting because they 
don't have citizenship documents readily available.

   The Senate has a majority to pass the measure but not the necessary 60 votes 
to overcome an expected Democratic-led filibuster.

   Trump has vowed executive actions if Congress fails to approve legislation.