Even though President Donald Trump’s appearance before a joint session of Congress may resemble and feel like a State of the Union address, it technically isn’t one.
This is largely due to tradition.
While the Constitution requires Presidents to periodically inform Congress about the “State of the Union,” early reports varied in format and frequency. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes that from 1801 to 1913, Presidents fulfilled this duty by sending a formal written letter to Congress. President Woodrow Wilson revived George Washington’s 1790 practice of delivering an oral address to Congress in 1913, although some later Presidents also delivered written messages.
The report was initially known as the Annual Message until President Franklin D. Roosevelt began using the constitutional term “State of the Union” for both the message and the event, which became the standard term. The title “State of the Union Address” was officially adopted in 1947 during Harry Truman’s presidency, which also marked the first televised address.
Before the 20th Amendment in 1933, which set the swearing-in dates for new members of Congress to January 3 and new Presidents to January 20, the Annual Message was typically given in December. From 1934 onward, the State of the Union began to be delivered at the beginning of the year (usually January or February, but sometimes as late as March). This raised the question of whether the outgoing or incoming President should deliver the report in an inauguration year.
According to reports, some Presidents have opted not to give a State of the Union address in the January before leaving office or in their inauguration year. However, in 1981, outgoing President Jimmy Carter sent a written message to Congress, and newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan delivered an oral address to a joint session of Congress. Reagan began a new tradition by explicitly stating that his inauguration-year speech to Congress was not a State of the Union address.
Presidents George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump, and Joe Biden have followed this precedent, giving speeches to a joint session of Congress in the weeks after their inauguration that are not State of the Union addresses. Reagan titled his speech “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery,” while the Bushes and Clinton called theirs addresses “on Administration Goals,” and Obama, Trump, and Biden simply called theirs “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress.”
Despite these speeches technically not being State of the Union addresses, reports indicate that their impact on public, media, and congressional perceptions of presidential leadership and power remains the same.
For Trump, this will be an opportunity to discuss the initial weeks of his second term and to outline his future agenda. He posted on Truth Social on Monday, “TOMORROW NIGHT WILL BE BIG. I WILL TELL IT LIKE IT IS!”
