President Trump delivered a celebratory speech to Congress, declaring that he had swiftly notched several wins for the American people. WSJ’s Andrew Restuccia joins Kate Linebaugh and Molly Ball to discuss the roadmap Trump laid out and what it means for the next few years. See The Journal live! Take our survey! Further Listening: -The Trade War With China Is On -Trump's Tariffs Cause Chaos in Auto Industry -Inside DOGE's Campaign of Secrecy Further Reading: -An Annotated Fact-Check and Analysis of Trump’s Speech to Congress -How Trump’s Polite Meeting With Zelensky Descended Into Acrimony Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts of 'Trump 2.0'?
Hey, Molly. Hey, you're not Ryan. I am not Ryan. No, Ryan's off this week, so you've got me.
Wait, so who are you?
I'm Kate Linebaugh, co-host of The Journal. And I understand this podcast, Trump 2.0, is about Trump's first 100 days. You are correct. How many days into Trump's presidency are we? Let me see. 46 days. So we're not even halfway to that 100-day benchmark. But this week, we did hit an important milestone. Trump laid out his vision for the country in his first speech to Congress.
Chapter 2: What is President Trump's vision for the future?
Members of the United States Congress, thank you very much. And to my fellow citizens, America is back.
What did you come away with from the speech?
You know, it was a defiant speech, an unapologetic speech, a long speech, and a speech that I think gave us a real window into how Trump is seeing his very disruptive first several weeks in the White House in his second term.
It has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country.
What did it tell you about where Trump is taking the country?
It told me that he is determined to see through these incredibly disruptive changes that he's unleashed, no matter what the cost to his party, to his own political prospects. And he is convinced that we are going to come out better on the other side once we get through it.
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Chapter 3: How does Trump's speech reflect his presidency's goals?
From the Journal, this is Trump 2.0. I'm Kate Leinbaugh. And I'm Molly Ball. It's Friday, March 7th. Coming up, Trump's first speech to Congress, where he lays out how he wants to reshape the economy and foreign policy.
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So, Molly, on Tuesday night, you were there in the House chamber for Trump's presidential address to a joint session of Congress. And going into this speech, there was a ton going on. There had been this major fissure between the U.S. and Ukraine. There had been the launch of 25 percent tariffs against Mexico and Canada. And the stock market was tanking.
So with that as background, what do you think was Trump's goal with this speech?
The goal was really to explain why all of this is good and necessary, right? Why he is winning. Why all of the things he's done add up to a better future, a new golden age, as he likes to put it. Why all of this disruption has a purpose and is going to lead to better things and is already putting victories on the board.
Is that always the goal with this kind of speech?
Yes and no. I mean, certainly presidents are always trying to justify their actions. I would say that there's a few things that are different about Trump than a quote-unquote normal president at this stage, right? I think a normal president has much more of a bipartisan honeymoon and spends much more time trying to extend olive branches to the other side to explain why the things that he is doing—
should be broadly acceptable to Republicans and Democrats. Trump actually began the speech by saying, Democrats hate me and they're not going to clap for anything I do. So it was almost like a, first of all, screw you. And so that's one difference. I think also just the level of disruption and that being a feature, not a bug, right? Trump is very proud of how disruptive his agenda is.
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Chapter 4: What theatrical moments did Trump include in his speech?
Hey, Andrew. So, Andrew, what is the White House's takeaway from this speech? What did they want going into it and how do they think it went?
I think they wanted to make a splash, and they feel like they did. They are thrilled. They feel like Trump delivered on what he promised, which was to sort of explain to the public exactly what he's doing and to make no apologies for it. What was the splash?
So there were a bunch of sort of theatrical moments throughout the speech, and Trump, we're told, going in, really wanted to emphasize those. You know, he sort of sees his presidency as a reality show, and that was sort of what we got. I mean, he announced that a 13-year-old boy with brain cancer would be an honorary member of the Secret Service.
And tonight, DJ, we're going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service Director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.
He said that a young man was admitted to West Point.
That's a hard one to get into, but I'm pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted. You will soon be joining...
He revealed that they had captured one of the planners of a deadly 2021 suicide attack in Afghanistan.
Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity. And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice.
So it was about sort of finding moments that he knew would resonate on social media, on cable news, and he sort of peppered those throughout the speech. And it wasn't, you know, notably, though he did talk about policy, there really weren't a whole lot of new policy details in there. It was more about the optics.
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Chapter 5: What is Trump's approach to the economy according to the speech?
Yeah, and the White House, you know, kind of set up a trap for them there, right? I mean, they, and their argument both, you know, in the aftermath of the speech is like, how could you not applaud for a boy with brain cancer or a guy getting into West Point? You know, you are callous and heartless, and you are the ones who are politicizing this whole dynamic.
So those were like, as you said, the theatrical moments, right? But what about the kind of more meaty stuff? What did we learn about Trump's approach to the economy?
I think the biggest thing we learned is that he is not really detailing, you know, a point by point plan to deal with prices other than saying he wants to drill more. And he believes, you know, once we drill more, then, you know, inflation will solely be dealt with.
Drill, baby, drill.
Yeah, he's blaming President Biden for all of the country's problems. He's not taking ownership of the issues that voters are facing. He blamed Biden for the price of eggs. And he really hasn't talked at length about how he's going to deal with prices beyond the issue of energy.
And that is worrying Republicans, both privately and publicly, who note that prices are one of the things that voters care about most. And it was actually the very thing that in part hurt Joe Biden in the last election.
So there's a risk that if this isn't addressed, and of course there's quite a bit of time before the midterms, but if this isn't addressed in a serious way before then and prices continue to remain high, which we expect them to, that Republicans could see some political follow-up.
But at the same time, Trump... is out there enacting tariffs, which will cause prices for Americans to jump. So how is all of this going to go down?
The tariffs themselves are not necessarily popular, but it was certainly very clear that this was going to be a part of his economic prescription. And there's a lot of evidence in the polls that the American public is very much in this wait-and-see moment. They are...
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Chapter 6: How are tariffs a part of Trump's economic strategy?
Exactly. I think Trump has a couple aims. One is, I think, first and foremost, to show that he is a strong man that will do what he's going to say and that he's going to punish countries for standing in his way. So it's a lot about showing strength and showing countries that he's serious when he makes these threats. He showed Canada and Mexico and China that this week.
Secondarily, it is also about rejiggering the American economy to build manufacturing, more manufacturing in the U.S., and to rely less heavily on products from China and other countries. That is a long-term project that will take years and decades to accomplish. The question really is, like, can these tariffs actually achieve that in the short or medium term?
Well, can they achieve it when they're constantly temporary or being put off 30 days and then rolled back and exemptions being given?
Certainly, if this is just a negotiating tactic, it's a little bit harder to make the case that this is going to be a long-term play to reorient the economy. But his goal is to get concessions from Canada and Mexico and China on the border when it comes to Canada and Mexico and on fentanyl, which he views as just a scourge on the country, particularly when it comes to China.
But using tariffs as a way to encourage businesses to move manufacturing back to the United States feels like it can work. We talk to people who are doing it. Honda is going to make the Civic in the U.S. now. But if the policy keeps going on and off, will it achieve those aims?
Yeah, I think the unstated sort of tension in the tariff policy that Andrew's talking about is we can't tell if the point of the tariffs is to have the tariffs or to not have the tariffs, right? Because if what you're trying to do is extract concessions, that means that after threatening the tariffs, you have to not do the tariffs, right?
Once they've given you what you want, they don't get tariffed as a reward for that. On the other hand, if what you're trying to do is rebalance the entire world economy and reshore American manufacturing, First of all, you have to actually do the tariffs and keep them on, right, in order to create that incentive. And second of all, that does drive prices up. That does make things more expensive.
The reason companies have outsourced all this manufacturing is because it is cheaper to make the things in other places. Now, I think the administration would say they are doing various other things to make that more cost effective for these companies, right?
That by, say, deregulation, relaxing labor laws, making energy inputs less expensive, for example, they can bring down the cost at the same time as they're incentivizing that reshoring. But it's all very complicated. And as Andrew said, it takes a long time. And especially when you have this unstable business environment, right?
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Chapter 7: What are the broader implications of Trump's policies?
I would agree with that. And the other thing I would point out is that companies and countries feel really frustrated because they don't know the terms with which they're negotiating with Trump. It seems like it changes all the time.
I think that Americans who voted for Trump love seeing him stick up for the country and advocate for bringing manufacturing back and American jobs.
I think that's right. And I think it's right to a point. Certainly, at the end of the day, people are going to vote with their pocketbooks. And if prices soar, particularly on core groceries and other household items, I think that will really have an impact. Trump is aware of that. And his advisors, many of whom have long sort of been skeptical about tariffs, are even more aware of that.
And they also are particularly concerned about the stock market and how it reacts. You saw Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary, go on TV multiple times this week and sort of signal that, you know, this is all a negotiation and things could change. And every time he did that, the stock market ticked up a little bit more.
And so they're really conscious of those dynamics and how they'll play out in the coming days, weeks and months.
How did the Democrats react to this speech?
You know, being in the room for the speech, it was fascinating to observe. The Democratic reaction really, I think, epitomized how sort of lost and in disarray the party is at this point because you could see the different approaches being taken by different members, and they just have not figured out a sort of cohesive, coordinated, much less effective way to express their opposition to Trump.
And I think it's the sort of Democrats being lost and not knowing how to respond to Trump is a result of a strategy that the White House has put in place very deliberately to throw as much at both Democrats and the media as they possibly can. And the effect of that is making it really difficult to respond in a unified, clear, direct way.
When you're getting 100 things a day from the White House, like, which one do you choose? And the Democrats are starting to get a little bit better about focusing on Musk and the economy, but they're also sort of chasing their tails about every single thing that comes around.
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