Chips, immigration, egg prices: How Trump's goals outlined to Congress could affect Arizonans
President Donald Trump pledged more action on illegal immigration, praised new investment by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., doubled down on DOGE and blamed high egg prices on his predecessor in a lengthy address to Congress.
In other words, the Republican president said Tuesday he is “just getting started” reshaping the country after his electoral victory in November.
“I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions, a record, to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth all across our wonderful land,” Trump told the joint session of Congress. “The people elected me to do the job and I'm doing it.”
Trump addressed the House and Senate for the first time in his second term, saying that his presidency has already been more successful than even George Washington's.
Trump spoke for more than 90 minutes in a speech similar to a State of the Union address. He pledged to plant an American flag on Mars, warned that his sweeping tariffs on Canada and Mexico could create a “little disturbance” and reiterated his interest in taking over both the Panama Canal and Greenland.
He also shone the spotlight on a number of guests, including the families of people killed by illegal immigrants, and named a 13-year-old with brain cancer as an honorary Secret Service agent.
Later in his speech, Trump acknowledged surviving an assassination attempt last year in Pennsylvania, calling it divine intervention when he tipped his head and narrowly evaded a gunman’s bullet.
“I was saved by God to make America great again. I believe that,” Trump said.
Trump blames Biden for economy
Trump claimed former President Joe Biden left him with an “economic catastrophe and inflation nightmare,” an assertion at odds with customary economic measures. But his highly partisan speech did reference a sore point that many voters cited in choosing Trump last year.
Metro Phoenix, for example, posted the nation’s highest readings for the Consumer Price Index for most of 2022. In August of that year, the index showed an annualized 13% inflation rate in the Phoenix area.
The number fell back to 1.6% by October 2024, but Trump and Republicans stoked memories of high inflation throughout the campaign and returned to the subject again on Tuesday night.
“Joe Biden, especially, let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg prices, out of control, and we’re working hard to get it back down,” Trump said, slamming Biden as “the worst president in American history.”
The price of eggs is on the rise in Arizona as the bird flu outbreak continues, though Grand Canyon State residents pay less for eggs than people in some other states.
Prices may also rise for another reason, Trump acknowledged.
Hours before Trump began his speech, his 25% tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and Canada went into effect. The unprecedented taxes could raise the price of imported goods from grocery store produce to automobiles.
Trump said Americans will “probably have to bear with me” while the world adjusts to his trade policies.
“Whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. It’s reciprocal. Back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we tax them. If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market,” Trump said. “We will take in trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before.”
Immigration a key focus of Trump's address
Trump frequently returned to issues of immigration and border security, vowing to continue with his plans to carry out the largest mass deportation in U.S. history and stopping the flow of fentanyl into the country while asking Congress to appropriate the money needed to accomplish his goals.
“I have sent Congress a detailed funding request, laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history, larger even than current record holder President Dwight Eisenhower,” Trump said to rousing applause from Republicans in the room.
Under the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s, 1.3 million people were deported to Mexico under a policy aimed at removing undocumented immigrants from the U.S.
Trump also said his immigration crackdown was already working, claiming Border Patrol encounters of migrants at the southern border in January were the lowest “ever recorded.”
In January, Border Patrol encounters at the southern border fell to 61,465 from about 96,000 in December, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. In January 2024, the Border Patrol recorded more than 176,000 encounters, according to the data.
“The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president,” Trump said.
Trump also touted his idea to create a “gold card” that for $5 million would allow wealthy immigrants to “buy a pathway to citizenship” in America.
“We will allow the most successful job-creating people from all over the world to buy a path to U.S. citizenship. It's like the green card, but better and more sophisticated,” Trump said.
“So while we take out the criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators who were allowed to enter our country under the open border policy of these people, the Democrats, the Biden administration, the open border, insane policies that you've allowed to destroy our country, we will now bring in brilliant, hardworking, job-creating people,” Trump said. “They're going to pay a lot of money and we're going to reduce our debt with that money.”
The family of Laken Riley, a Georgia student who was murdered by an illegal immigrant, was in the audience for Trump’s speech. He acknowledged her death and spoke about signing the Laken Riley Act in her honor last month.
Sen. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona were among the 12 Senate Democrats who voted for the Laken Riley Act, which targets for deportation immigrants charged with crimes down to shoplifting. Gallego was one of two Democratic co-sponsors of the measure.
Trump also pointed out that earlier in the day he had signed an executive order declaring English the official language of the U.S.
Federal departments and agencies will still be allowed to provide documents and services in languages other than English.
On X, Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UnidosUS, a civil rights and advocacy organization, called the order declaring English the official language of the U.S. “yet another distraction from the real challenges America's working families face.”
Trump touts TSMC investment in Phoenix
Trump’s victory lap for the latest, $100 billion expansion plan in Phoenix announced by TSMC this week brought another swipe at the CHIPS and Science Act that Kelly helped shape in the Senate.
Trump said the expansion didn’t owe to the CHIPS Act and suggested it should be scrapped, with the savings used to bring down the national debt.
“We’re not giving them any money. Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing,” Trump said, turning to House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “You should get rid of the CHIPS Act and whatever's left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.”
That overlooks a more complicated and evolving investment by the Taiwanese company. Reuters reported that the Trump administration met with TSMC’s CEO earlier this year about taking a majority stake in a joint venture with Intel.
At the same time, the announced $100 billion expansion would seem to qualify for a 25% manufacturing investment tax credit under CHIPS, a major savings for any corporate project.
Johnson floated getting rid of the CHIPS Act on the campaign trail last fall but quickly walked it back, saying he’d simply like to “streamline” the legislation.
Sign up for The Republic's American Border newsletter to get the latest immigration news every Thursday.
'Our country will be woke no longer,' Trump says
Trump reminded lawmakers that he has sought to reshape the nation’s culture through executive orders curtailing gender identity, transgender participation in girls’ sports and diversity and equity programs in his first weeks in office.
“Our country will be woke no longer,” Trump said.
The president was at times booed, heckled and otherwise interrupted by Democrats. He implored the opposite party to work with him, calling their criticism “sad.”
“There is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud,” Trump said.
A number of Democrats walked out of the House chamber in protest of Trump’s speech. That included first-year Rep. Yassamin Ansari, D-Ariz., who said in a social media clip that she couldn’t listen to “incessant dehumanizing of immigrants” and the LGBTQ+ community.
“I’m absolutely devastated by the (expletive) that I just heard,” Ansari said. “I couldn’t hear any more of it.”
For his part, Gallego pushed back on social media during the speech when Trump renewed his campaign pledge to exempt tipped wages from income tax.
“They’re lying to you. No tax on tips and no tax on overtime are nowhere in the GOP’s budget. The only thing they’re fighting for is cutting YOUR benefits to hand billionaires another tax break,” he wrote.
Kari Lake, a special adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media who was sworn into her post this week, couldn’t resist a political broadside at Gallego, who defeated her in November, and Kelly for their evident displeasure with Trump’s words.
“If the two Arizona ‘Senators’ who insist that they are Trump-friendly moderates continue to sit on their butts all night, they’re liable to get sore,” Lake wrote on social media. “They should try standing and clapping while the President is outlining the policies & successes that Arizonans voted for.”
Trump doubles down on Department of Government Efficiency
Trump has trimmed thousands of employees from the federal workforce through layoffs, deferred resignation offers and a ban on remote work with the help of billionaire adviser Elon Musk.
The pair have also tried to significantly cut federal grant funding, a controversial move that is tied up in court.
Trump thanked Musk, the richest man in the world and the founder of SpaceX, who attended the speech. Trump also repeated false claims that millions of dead people are receiving Social Security benefits in his pitch to shrink the federal bureaucracy.
Kelly challenged the claim.
“Donald Trump is lying to you about Social Security and Elon Musk wants to decimate the Social Security Administration,” Kelly said in a social media post. “It’s never missed a payment in 88 years, but cutting up to 50% of its workforce and shutting local offices puts that record — and seniors — at risk.”