EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address will put the economy front and center, pairing working-family guests with a data-driven case on affordability — while also making economic policy announcements, Fox News Digital learned.
Trump is slated to begin his speech at 9 p.m. Eastern Standard Time Tuesday evening from the U.S. Capitol. The State of the Union is equal parts constitutional check-in between the president and Congress, as well as a political showcase that gives the president a national stage to claim wins and set the agenda for the coming year.
The 2026 address will be forward-looking but rooted in what the White House described as measurable progress on cost-of-living pressures, with Trump expected to list off statistics and data on the economy following the sky-high inflation rates of the Biden administration, while showcasing everyday Americans who have benefited from Trump policies, Fox News Digital learned.
“President Trump’s State of the Union Address will celebrate 250 glorious years of our nation’s independence and excellence, highlighting incredible stories of American heroes throughout the speech,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital ahead of the speech.
“In one year, President Trump has turned our country around from the brink of disaster, and he will rightly declare the State of Our Union is strong, prosperous and respected,” she continued. “The president will proudly tout his administration’s many record-breaking accomplishments, and also layout an ambitious agenda to continue bringing the American Dream back for working people.”
Touting Trump Accounts, tax cuts in the “big, beautiful bill,” lowering drug prices and working to ease the ability of American families to purchase a home are among Trump’s top orders of business, Fox News Digital learned. The president also is expected to make undisclosed economic policy announcements during the speech.
The economy is a top concern for voters as they prepare to vote for a new Congress in November, which follows Democrats’ 2025 winning campaign strategy around “affordability.”
Across Trump’s first year of his second administration, the president’s economic vision has focused on evening the U.S. trade field with tariffs, “unleashing” U.S. energy in the oil, coal and natural gas sectors, lowering drug costs on consumers, as well as other efforts aimed at Trump’s vision of ushering in a “golden age” for the U.S.
Trump is expected to tout his efforts to lower drug costs Tuesday, including giving a shoutout to the White House’s recent launch of TrumpRx.gov, which aims to deliver the lowest-priced pharmaceuticals to American patients.
TrumpRx.gov initiative is a government-run portal designed to steer consumers toward lower-cost prescription drugs offered by manufacturers and is central to Trump’s effort to tie U.S. drug prices to those paid in other wealthy countries, a policy known as “most favored nation” pricing.
A White House official told Fox News Digital that Trump invited guests tied to the various economic initiatives in his speech, including Catherine Rayner of Norfolk, Virginia. Rayner and her husband have been navigating fertility complications and in vitro fertilization for five years, with Rayner becoming the first patient of the portal earlier in February when it rolled out.
The couple’s spending on fertility medications dropped from roughly $4,000 to $500 under the program, Fox Digital learned.
The president is expected to invoke his well-known populist tone in the speech, including to speak out against “special interest groups” that have been entrenched in power despite “ripping off” and leaving working Americans behind, a White House official told Fox News Digital.
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The president also will reflect on how policies within the “big, beautiful bill” have benefited everyday Americans, Fox News Digital learned.
The “big, beautiful bill” is a massive piece of legislation Trump signed into law on the Fourth of July 2025 that champions the administration’s agenda from securing the border to beefing up defense spending to “no tax on social security.”
The president also invited Pennsylvania mom Megan Hemhouser to the speech, who spends her days homeschooling her two children and working as a waitress in the evenings.
She and her husband, a heavy machinery operator, have benefited from a $5,000 increase in take-home pay due to Trump’s “no tax on tips,” and “no tax on overtime” policies under the bill, Fox News Digital learned.
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Trump’s speech comes after the Supreme Court delivered a blow to his tariff policies Friday, with the court invalidating his use of an emergency law to impose sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners.
Tariffs are a key piece of Trump’s overarching economic plan for the U.S., touting the duties since the start of his second administration as bringing parity to foreign nations “ripping off” the U.S. for decades via “unfair” trade policies, while simultaneously promoting manufacturing on U.S. soil.
In response to SCOTUS’s decision, Trump imposed a 10% global tariff on foreign nations under a different law — specifically, Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — before upping that global tariff to 15% Saturday as the administration maps out “new and legally permissible Tariffs, which will continue our extraordinarily successful process of Making America Great Again,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
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Trump’s speech is expected to predominantly focus on domestic economic policies, but will be backdropped by world events, including heightened tensions between the U.S. and Iran as potential strikes loom, and Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.
Democrats have spoken out against Trump’s domestic and foreign policies at most political turns in the past 13 months and have staged protest stunts during Trump’s previous State of the Union addresses.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for example, tore up Trump’s 2020 speech, and Texas Rep. Al Green heckled Trump during his joint address in 2025, ultimately leading to Green’s ejection.
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Democrats are again expected to show their resistance to the administration. However, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has urged colleagues to tone down protests.
“The two options that are in front of us in our House (are) to either attend with silent defiance or to not attend and send a message to Donald Trump in that fashion, which will include participation in a variety of different alternate programming that is going to take place in and around the Capitol complex,” Jeffries told reporters earlier in February.
The address marks Trump’s fourth as president since 2018, and his first State of the Union under his second administration.
Trump delivered a joint address to Congress in 2025, but it was not officially a State of the Union because it came in the first year of his term, when presidents typically deliver a joint address to both chambers instead. Trump’s joint address in 2025 focused on the “great liberation” of America following the Biden administration’s four years.
“The American dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback, the likes of which the world has never witnessed and perhaps will never witness again. There’s never been anything like it,” Trump said during his 2025 address.
Fox News Digital’s Amanda Macias contributed to this report.
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