President Donald Trump intended to talk about long-promised tax cuts for everyday Americans during Monday’s Congressional address but abandoned those plans to scream at Democratic representatives instead.
“The president said he’s gonna talk a lot about the economy,” ABC News D.C. correspondent Jonathan Karl said coming out of a White House press briefing earlier in the day. “He’s gonna call for new tax cuts, tonight, and he’s going to say that the next three years in America will be the best years economically that we’ve ever had.”
Fox News’ Brett Baier further confirmed Trump planned on calling “for a new form of corporate and personal tax cuts in his speech tonight,” adding the president had offered “no specifics on the details.”
Those details, much like any mention of future tax breaks, did not feature at any point during his speech later that night. Trump, whose promise of tax cuts was one of the top pledges of his 2024 campaign, instead sought to relitigate last year’s Congressional disputes over his “Big Beautiful Bill” measures.
“Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history,” he raged. “All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts. They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead.”
He added that in time, and notwithstanding his still-stinging Supreme Court defeat, he believes his tariff measures, “paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.”
The nation’s top judges ruled Friday that many of the levies Trump has imposed over the past year were illegal. History has consistently shown that tariffs disproportionately affect American citizens, as foreign companies and domestic importers gradually shift heightened costs onto consumers.
The president nevertheless insisted Monday that as a result of his measures, “the roaring economy is roaring like never before,” that “you are going to see good things happen over the next number of years,” and that “this is the golden age of America.”
At 2.7 percent, inflation remains persistently high, with the increased cost of essentials like utilities, energy and groceries reportedly hitting lower- and middle-income families hardest. Job growth has slowed across multiple sectors, and hundreds of thousands of federal layoffs have devastated consumer demand in local economies dependent on government employment.
A record-breaking government shutdown in October, fuelled in part by Republican refusals to budge on talks for renewing healthcare subsidies before the end of the year, also cost the economy tens of billions of dollars, denting consumer and business confidence across the country.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment on this story.
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