congressional approval

WASHINGTON — President Trump will deliver his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment of unusual upheaval, confronting a cascade of crises that have left Washington unsettled and his own political standing diminished early in his second term.

When lawmakers gather to hear the president’s agenda for the year ahead, the scene is expected to reflect an undeterred president under increasing political strain.

The president is facing a partial government shutdown triggered by his administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, rising tensions over the United States’ involvement in foreign conflicts and growing domestic dissent that is fracturing the president’s political alliances and aggravating his rivals.

Adding to the turbulent atmosphere is the economic unease in an election year. The president, who a year ago promised to bring down prices for consumers, insisted Monday that America has “the greatest economy we’ve ever had” even though public polling shows economic pressures are worrying a majority of Americans.

Trump said he plans to talk about the country’s economic successes in his speech, saying “it is going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”

Republicans have recently pushed Trump to focus on the push to lower costs, a message they see as crucial to help them keep control of Congress. What remains to be seen is how much of Trump’s economic message will be colored by a Supreme Court decision last week that struck down his use of tariffs, a key portion of his economic agenda. In recent days, the president has remained defiant on the issue, lashing out at the justices for delivering a legal setback on his tariffs, and looking to impose new global tariffs in a different way.

Trump said Monday he does not need to seek congressional approval to impose new levies, even though the nation’s highest court ruled his tariffs cannot stand without the approval of Congress.

“As president, I do not have to go back to Congress to get approval of Tariffs,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “It has already been gotten, in many forms, a long time ago!”

Trump’s rebuke underscores the president’s increasingly combative posture toward both the judiciary and Congress, at a time when he is heavily relying on his executive authority to advance sweeping policies on immigration, trade and national security.

His willingness to wield executive authority has been seen in the last year as the president led U.S. forces to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened to seize Greenland, considered an attack on Iran and eyed an armed conflict with drug cartels in Mexico.

At home, Trump has said he thinks the federal government should assert control over state elections as he continues to push false claims of a stolen 2020 election.

Whether that will happen remains to be seen as Republican leaders, and other conservative lawmakers, voice opposition to some of the president’s legislative pitches.

In recent months, Congress has tried to reassert its authority over the executive branch — in some cases led by small Republican defections by lawmakers who have grown concerned about the president’s involvement in foreign wars and his economic policies.

One of the most notable rebukes to Trump’s authority occurred late last year, when a bipartisan group of lawmakers secured legislation that forced the Trump administration to release investigative files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

While Trump maintains the release of those files cleared him of wrongdoing, the findings have so far ensnared key figures in Trump’s political orbit and reinforced a sense of scandal that continues to loom over his administration. Anger over the administration’s handling of the Epstein case has led to bipartisan backlash, even prompting some conservatives to call for U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to resign.

Another sign of the polarized moment Trump will face Tuesday night will be led by Democrats.

About a dozen Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives plan to boycott the president’s speech and participate in what they have dubbed the “People’s State of the Union.”

“I will not be attending the State of the Union,” U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said in a social media video over the weekend. “We cannot treat this as normal. This is not business as usual. I will not give him the audience he craves for the lies that he tells.”

In recent years, lawmakers who wished to disavow the president’s address would typically stand and shout in protest, disrupt the remarks or coordinate outfits to signal their opposition.

In 2020, for example, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) stood behind Trump at the podium as he delivered his remarks and then shredded a copy of his script. She later called it a “manifesto of mistruths.”

This year, even the president’s allies appear to be on notice.

While it is a long-standing custom for the Supreme Court justices to attend the president’s annual address, Trump told reporters on Friday that the six justices who voted against his tariffs policy were “barely” invited to the event.

“Three of them are invited,” he said.

Trump’s State of the Union remarks will be dissected to see how he intends to advance his agenda and to deal with a divided Congress that remains at a standstill over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

The partial government shutdown was triggered by partisan tensions over Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by federal agents.

At a White House event Monday, Trump lamented that public polling shows waning support for federal immigration agents.

“It just amazes me that there is not more support out there,” Trump said. “We actually have a silent support, I think it is silent.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a panel made up of President Trump’s appointees, on Thursday approved his proposal to build a ballroom larger than the White House itself where the East Wing once stood.

The seven-member panel is one of two federal agencies that must approve Trump’s plans for the ballroom. The National Capital Planning Commission, which has jurisdiction over construction and major renovation to government buildings in the region, is also reviewing the project.

Members of the fine arts commission originally had been scheduled to discuss and vote on the design after a follow-up presentation by the architect, and had planned to vote on final approval at next month’s meeting. But after the 6-0 vote on the design, the panel’s chairman, Rodney Mims Cook Jr., unexpectedly made another motion to vote on final approval.

Six of the seven commissioners — all appointed by the Republican president in January — voted once more in favor. Commissioner James McCrery did not participate in the discussion or the votes because he was the initial architect on the project before Trump replaced him.

The ballroom will be built on the site of the former East Wing, which Trump had demolished in October with little public notice. That drew an outcry from lawmakers, historians and preservationists who argued that the president should not have taken that step until the two federal agencies and Congress had reviewed and approved the project, and the public had a chance to provide comment.

The 90,000-square-foot ballroom would be nearly twice the size of the White House, which is 55,000-square-feet, and would accommodate about 1,000 people, Trump has said. The East Room, currently the largest room in the White House, can fit just over 200 people at most.

Commissioners offered mostly complimentary comments before the votes.

Cook echoed one of Trump’s main arguments for adding a larger entertaining space to the White House: It would end the long-standing practice of erecting temporary structures on the South Lawn that Trump describes as tents to host visiting dignitaries for state dinners and other functions.

“Our sitting president has actually designed a very beautiful structure,” Cook said. “The United States just should not be entertaining the world in tents.”

The panel received mainly negative comments from the public

Members of the public were asked to submit written comment by a Wednesday afternoon deadline. Thomas Leubke, the panel’s secretary, said “over 99%” of the more than 2,000 messages it received in the past week from around the country were in opposition to the project.

Leubke tried to summarize the comments for the commissioners.

Some comments cited concerns about Trump’s decision to unilaterally tear down the East Wing, as well as the lack of transparency about who is paying for the ballroom or how contracts were awarded, Leubke said. Comments in support referenced concerns for the image of the United States on the world stage and the need for a larger entertaining space at the White House.

Trump has defended the ballroom in a recent series of social media posts that included drawings of the building. He said in one January post that most of the material needed to build it had been ordered “and there is no practical or reasonable way to go back. IT IS TOO LATE!”

The commission met Thursday over Zoom and heard from Shalom Baranes, the lead architect, and Rick Parisi, the landscape architect. Both described a series of images and sketches of the ballroom and the grounds as they would appear after the project is completed.

Trump has said the ballroom would cost about $400 million and be paid for with private donations. To date, the White House has only released an incomplete list of donors.

A lawsuit against the project is still pending

The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued in federal court to halt construction. A ruling in the case is pending.

In comments it submitted to the commission, the privately funded group recommended that the size of the ballroom be reduced to “accommodate and respect the primary historic importance of the original Executive Residence.”

At the commission’s January meeting, some commissioners had questioned Baranes, Trump’s architect, about the “immense” design and scale of the project even as they broadly endorsed Trump’s vision. On Thursday, Baranes described changes he has since made to the design, and the commissioners said they welcomed the adjustments.

The ballroom project is scheduled for additional discussion at a March 5 meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission, which is led by a top White House aide. This panel heard an initial presentation about the project in January.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.