00:00U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to use Tuesday's State of the Union address to
00:05champion his immigration crackdowns, slashing of the federal government, and his push to
00:10preserve widespread tariffs.
00:13The traditional address to Congress comes at a fraught moment for Trump's presidency,
00:17with his approval ratings slumping, anxieties rising over Iran, and Americans struggling
00:23with the cost of living as the November midterm election nears.
00:26But it offers Trump a chance to persuade voters to keep Republicans in power.
00:32Will, for more on this story, we can say hello to our international affairs editor, Angela Diffley.
00:37Hi, Carys.
00:38Angela, let's first take a look at Trump's domestic record, what's happened in the past year,
00:42and what might he say?
00:44Yeah, you mentioned there how he is sinking in the polls.
00:48Very important, of course, midterms coming up, as you mentioned, this year in November.
00:52If the House is lost to the Democrats, as it seems likely, looking at polls at the moment,
00:59then there is a possibility that Trump could be impeached again.
01:02He will want to avoid that.
01:04So he will try today to persuade people of the successes of this first year.
01:10You know, we all know how gifted he is at exaggerating.
01:13He will boast of his successes.
01:16And there are some clear wins in terms of pleasing his MAGA base, at least.
01:22The border with Mexico is pretty much sealed now.
01:26There is no longer a major problem of chaotic illegal immigration,
01:30as there was for much of the Biden term there.
01:33That has been more or less fixed.
01:36Another issue, the issue of transgender rights.
01:39That will please his MAGA base.
01:41They have rolled back a lot of that, and that will certainly please his MAGA base.
01:47Beyond that, it is a lot more messy.
01:51First of all, tariffs, which we saw that,
01:54has created significant problems for American businesses,
01:57who now are wondering whether they will get their money back,
02:00after the Supreme Court last week ruled that Trump's use of those tariffs in that way
02:06was not legal.
02:08Well, the use of ICE, the enforcement force to enforce illegal immigration laws,
02:19was a disaster leading to the death of two what looked like entirely innocent Americans.
02:26That has not gone down well with the American public, including Republicans,
02:30and including Republicans who favoured this policy.
02:33It was simply badly executed, clumsy and cruel in too many people's eyes.
02:40Another area where he is not in a very comfortable situation is the Epstein affair.
02:47Again, he continued more so in his first term, his first campaign, the idea of drain the swamp.
02:53But that remained a theme.
02:55You know, I'm for the little guy.
02:56I'm not with all this Washington elite.
02:59A lot of voters voted for him because of that.
03:01And there will be continued fallout from the Epstein files.
03:06Epstein files.
03:07Notably, of course, at the moment, any legal, any prosecutions are only happening in Europe,
03:13and notably Britain.
03:14There have been no prosecutions apart from Ghislaine Maxwell in the United States.
03:19But this thing will continue to create problems for him.
03:22And until now, he has had very little pushback from, for example, Congress.
03:30Once the primaries are out of the way and congressmen and women are less fearful of not getting an endorsement
03:38from Donald Trump,
03:40they are likely to flex a little more, be less supine, push back a little more.
03:44And we've already seen that he executed, you know, virtual U-turns on those three big things.
03:50The tariffs, he has been forced to completely reconsider after the Supreme Court stood up to him.
03:56On ICE, after what was pretty much a civilian resistance to it, he has had to reconsider and pull out
04:06the ICE officers.
04:07And on Epstein, he was forced to release files, even though initially he didn't want to.
04:12So he's in a much less comfortable position than he would like to be giving this State of Union speech.
04:18Well, Trump came to power, of course, on a pledge not to engage in forever wars, to put American interests
04:25first.
04:25Do people in the U.S. like his foreign policy moves so far?
04:29Sixty percent of Americans apparently disapprove of the way he's conducting foreign policy.
04:35There will be, he will no doubt flag up what he considers to be significant wins.
04:42He can claim significant credit for getting a ceasefire in Gaza.
04:49That is something he will definitely talk about.
04:52Equally, he sees capturing Nicolas Maduro as a clear win.
04:57It could lead to oil investments for the United States.
05:01It could be a positive thing on the whole for the United States and has certainly contributed to stemming the
05:08major drug trafficking problem in all of that region.
05:11He can claim credit as well for forcing NATO, European NATO members, to up their spending on NATO.
05:19After that, again, it looks very messy.
05:21Mexico, the Caribbean, you know, that's a mixed situation.
05:24He has alienated many Europeans.
05:27But again, that's not necessarily something that Americans in their day-to-day life would worry about.
05:33What they will be worrying about is Iran, because it does look as if this could lead to a full
05:41-scale war.
05:42It's possible.
05:43Thursday, there will either be a deal or Trump will be forced to do something.
05:47Having amassed this huge armada in the area, he will have to act if the Iranians do not blink.
05:56And they do not seem to be blinking.
05:58And then he has never really made clear to the United States public what this war in Iran is about.
06:05Is it about disabling their nuclear program?
06:09You know, last June, he told them it had already been obliterated.
06:12Is it about disabling their ballistic missiles?
06:16They can't reach the United States.
06:19So, again, that's something Americans might shrug their shoulders about.
06:22Or is it about toppling the Iranian regime while it's at its weakest?
06:26You know, if this ends up with body bags and American soldiers as casualties, that will not go down with
06:34his MAGA base.
06:35He pledged, above all, to put America first and to have no forever wars.
06:40Because if he's lucky and either a deal is made, then all credit to him, his idea of maximum threat
06:48will have worked.
06:49But if he's not lucky and this thing goes wrong, not just the MAGA base, but many Americans will feel
06:57that that was not what they voted for.
07:00All right, Angela Diffley, thank you very much for that analysis.
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