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Who is on Trump's guest list?
Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, will preside over the joint session, alongside vice-president JD Vance, in his capacity as the president of the Senate.
The carefully curated guest list, assembled by the White House and congressional leaders, appears like a roadmap for a competing cultural vision, touching on everything from transgender athletes, immigration and the federal worker purge – each with a story to tell.
The first lady, Melania Trump, will host Allyson and Lauren Phillips, mother and sister of Laken Riley, a college student allegedly murdered by a Venezuelan migrant.
Alongside them will sit Alexis Nungaray, whose 12-year-old daughter was killed by undocumented immigrants last June.
Two guests will underscore the administration’s hard line on transgender issues: Payton McNabb, a high school volleyball player who claims to have sustained a concussion from a transgender athlete, and January Littlejohn, a parent who sued a school board over gender identity transitions.
Johnson has invited rightwing commentators Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh, alongside Riley Gaines, an activist who has campaigned against transgender participation in women’s sports.
The House oversight committee chairman James Comer and the judiciary committee chairman Jim Jordan will host IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.
But the biggest name coming out of Trump’s camp is so-called “department of government efficiency” leader Elon Musk, who has become more and more unpopular by the week. He will be in the House chamber as a living emblem of the administration’s most aggressive governance strategy that has the potential to cut hundreds of thousands of federal jobs across the country.
The theme of Donald Trump’s address to Congress will be the “renewal of the American dream”, the White House said.
House speaker Mike Johnson formally invited Trump to speak to Congress in January.
In his letter, Johnson invited the president to share his “America First vision for our legislative future”.
Stephen Miller, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, said:
It’s an opportunity for President Trump, as only he can, to lay out the last month of record-setting, record-breaking, unprecedented achievements and accomplishments.
How to watch Trump's address to Congress
Donald Trump’s address to Congress will begin at 9pm ET on Tuesday 4 March in Washington DC.
He will deliver remarks from the chamber of the House of Representatives.
Major news networks are likely to broadcast the address live. PBS will carry a live stream on its YouTube page.
Trump to lay out second-term vision in address to Congress
Good evening US politics readers. Donald Trump will deliver his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, where he is expected to lay out his second-term vision after a radical start that has dramatically reshaped both domestic and foreign policy.
Trump’s address, which will begin at 9pm ET from the chamber of the House of Representatives, marks his first major speech six weeks into a presidency that has seen the president empowering Elon Musk to dramatically downsize the federal workforce, threatening American’s allies with tariffs and coddling longtime American foes.
His administration has initiated sweeping mass layoffs of federal employees, mobilized officers from nearly every federal law enforcement agency and the US military to carry out his campaign promise of mass deportations, and rattled Europe with his pursuit of a peace deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine on terms preferential to Moscow.
Trump is also preparing to announce a minerals deal with Ukraine in his address this evening, according to a report, despite his advisers cautioning that a deal has yet to be signed and that the situation could be changed.
