Last night (March 5), Donald Trump gave a long, rambling speech to Congress – his first since returning to the Oval Office. 

He spent most of the speech bragging about how popular he is and how well he did in the recent election (it’s somewhat ironic that the MAGA movement is homophobic when its leader spends so much time talking about a “man-date” – sounds pretty gay to us!) Veering from smug triumph to maudlin self-pity, he at one point started complaining about the Democrats’ refusal to be nice to him. “There is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations, or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history, or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded. And these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements,” he said. He seemed almost on the verge of tears as he bellowed in the tone of someone falling to their knees and cursing an unjust universe, “the egg prices are out of control!!!”

So Trump is a vain megalomaniac with a taste for the dramatic – that’s nothing new. What else did we find out from his speech?

HE’S STILL BESTIES WITH ELON MUSK

Lots of people predicted that Trump would fall out with Musk soon after he got elected, which seemed like a good bet considering his history of feuding with former allies and advisors. But whatever Trump’s personal opinion (according to a new book by journalist Michael Wolff, he found Musk’s behaviour during the campaign “bizarre and weird”), their partnership is still going strong – last night Trump made a point of thanking Musk and praising him as “hard-working.” Why hasn’t he kicked him to the curb yet? The US public is divided about 50-50 on Musk’s Doge programme – which has fired thousands of federal workers and slashed government funding to the bone – but his personal favourability ratings are far lower, which is not surprising considering he is the least likeable and charismatic man alive. Maybe it’s helpful for Trump to have someone around to soak up all of the bad energy.

THE DEMOCRATS’ RESISTANCE WAS A MIXED BAG

Towards the beginning of Trump’s speech, so many Democrats were booing and heckling that the house speaker had to bang his gavel and threaten to chuck them out. One congressman, Al Green from Texas, was actually removed after refusing to stop shouting. A group of Democrat women in the audience were wearing coordinated pink outfits as a form of protest, which is exactly the kind of radical action the US needs as it slides into authoritarianism, as was holding up a sign which read “this is not normal”. Consider yourself thoroughly owned, Mr Trump! The Democrats’ official rebuttal to Trump’s speech was made by Michigan senator Elissa Slotkin, who made sure to praise Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush – rousing stuff! But couldn’t they have gotten Liz Cheney to deliver it? 

HE’S PROBABLY GOING TO CRASH THE ECONOMY 

It’s not that Trump is insincere in his racism or misogyny, but it does seem like “tariffs” are his greatest life passion, the thing that really gets him out of bed in the morning. (If you don’t know what tariffs are, don’t worry about it: I have been pretending to understand for the last five years. Basically, they are a tax imposed on foreign exports, so a Chinese company selling goods in the US would have to pay the government more money, which generally raises the price for consumers.) Trump is determined to go ahead with his plan to raise tariffs on China and introduce them for China and Mexico: “it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re OK with that. It won’t be much,” he said. You don’t have to be some bleeding-heart liberal to think this is going to be a disaster; in fact it’s not really a left versus right issue at all – plenty of capitalist economists and Republican politicians object. If it does work out badly, Trump will just continue blaming Biden, but that excuse is going to have a time limit for all but the most enthusiastic MAGA heads. 

HE HAS SOME BOND VILLAIN DESIGNS ON THE REST OF THE WORLD

He vowed that the US is “going to get [Greenland] one way or another”, as well as promising to “reclaim” the Panama Canal, which the US returned to Panama in 1977. At the same time, he restated his commitment to withdrawing US aid, listing several nations in Africa as examples of undeserving recipients. It looks like American foreign policy going forward will be a lot less carrot and a lot more stick.