Washington, DC:
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time after assuming office for his second term in January this year. Generally, the US President’s annual televised addresses are known as the “State of the Union” speeches, where the government’s accomplishments in the previous year and its agenda for the upcoming year are highlighted.
However, President Trump’s remarks were referred to as “a Joint Address to Congress” and the name change was mostly due to tradition set by President Ronald Reagan in his first term.
The US Constitution requires the President to update Congress and recommend policies, although the founding document doesn’t specify precisely when that address should take place.
Usually, presidents deliver these remarks in January or February, reflecting on events of the previous year and outlining their policy priorities for the coming one. The message was known as “the President’s Annual Message to Congress.”
In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began referring to it as the “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union.”
Shortly after he was sworn in for his first term in 1981, Reagan addressed a joint session of Congress, remarks that were called “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery,” according to The American Presidency Project, at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Presidents George HW Bush and Bill Clinton followed suit in their own first years in office, with 1989 and 1993 messages both entitled “Administration Goals.” In 2001, President George W. Bush’s speech was his “Budget Message.”
According to the American Presidency Project, the impacts of these first-year speeches should be considered to have the same heft as the State of the Union addresses that follow in subsequent years.
And, just like the State of the Union address, the opposing party to the one that occupies the White House gives a brief speech in response, which, like the president’s remarks, is televised. This year’s address was delivered by Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan.