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Interviews
Eight House Republicans are weighing in on what President Donald Trump should discuss tonight during his State of the Union address.
Lawmakers the Washington Reporter spoke with want Trump to emphasize the wins of his first year and his agenda for the next three years in office. “I’d like for him to talk about the big wins in the most historic year of a president in the history of America,” Rep. Mark Alford (R., Mo.) said. “The biggest wins for the American people to secure our economy, border, nation, deporting illegal aliens, it’s the whole kit and kaboodle. He’s restored our place as the prominent world power.”
Last year, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told the Reporter that Trump’s joint address to Congress was a “Golden Speech for the Golden Age.” Expectations are equally high this year.
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Op-Eds
One year into President Donald J. Trump’s second term, the state of our union is strong. For four years, President Joe Biden plunged our union into one crisis after another. Hoosiers faced skyrocketing inflation, the highest gas prices, the worst border crisis on record, and multiple wars began around the world due to Biden’s failed leadership. This is the mess President Trump, Congressional Republicans, and I inherited. We are working hard to right these terrible wrongs and usher America into her Golden Age.
The single largest achievement so far in President Trump’s term has been the Working Families Tax Cuts. I was honored to work with the president to pass this pro-growth legislation, which cut federal spending, delivered historic investments in rural America, and expanded tax cuts to farmers, small businesses, and middle-class families. I serve on the House Agriculture Committee, which has jurisdiction over a significant portion of this legislation. At long last, we have a president who is prioritizing farmers. With President Trump’s signature, this bill delivered a generational investment in our farmers and producers, expanded the farm safety net and crop insurance, funded successful conservation programs, and supported export growth so our farmers can sell more of their goods abroad.
Inflation rose dramatically under President Biden, driving up the cost of basic goods and groceries and making life unaffordable for Hoosier families struggling to make ends meet. This was a direct result of the prior administration’s tax-and-spend agenda. The Working Families Tax Cuts, by contrast, reduced federal spending by $1.5 trillion. President Trump has also been committed to reducing the size and scope of the federal government to save tax dollars and cut down on the wasteful, inflationary spending. I have supported multiple measures, including a $9 billion recissions package and appropriations bills that reduced our federal spending levels. As a result of President Trump’s successful agenda, inflation is down approximately 70 percent from its Biden-era peak. Hoosier families can now keep more of their hard-earned money, allowing workers to regain their purchasing power, improve their standard of living, and remain on track to see their take-home pay increase by as much as $11,500.
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Op-Eds
As we prepare to hear President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address tonight, there is one success from the past year that stands out the most — our border.
As chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement, I have been honored to work alongside President Trump to deliver results.
These results speak for themselves. After years of chaos created by the open-border policies of the Left, we have seen a restoration of law and order. From February 2025 through January 2026 — the first year of President Trump’s second term — nationwide border encounters dropped 83 percent compared to the period of February 2024 through January 2025 under the Biden administration, in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) recorded 2.1 million nationwide encounters.
