Sen. Elissa Slotkin delivered the Democratic response to Trump's address.
President Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, six weeks into his historic return to the White House.
During the speech, Trump said "America is back" and defended the tariffs on key U.S. trading partners. He touched on immigration and the mineral deal with Ukraine, but neglected to go into detail on his economic plan. The speech was also met with protests and disruptions from Democrats.
Marc Fogel, an American history teacher who was released from a Russian prison last month after four years detainment, is in attendance at tonight's speech.
Trump said he promised Fogel's mother "that we would bring her boy safely back home."
"After 22 days in office, I did just that," he said.
As Trump finally turned to talking about Russia and Ukraine, Democrats clapped when he said the U.S. has sent billions of dollars to support Ukraine's defense.
"Do you want to keep it going for another five years? Yeah, yeah, you would say, Pocahontas says 'yes,'" he said. The reference is a callback to his 2018 taunt of Sen. Elizabeth Warren as she ran for president.
The camera then panned to Warren, who was wearing her signature blue suit. Warren clapped throughout Trump's jab.
Ukraine came up 90 minutes into the speech and Trump provided an update following last week's blow up in the Oval Office.
He claimed Zelenskyy sent him a letter today indicating that he was ready to come back to the negotiating table and was willing to sign the agreement to give the U.S. Ukraine's rare materials.
"Wouldn't that be beautiful? Wouldn't that be beautiful? It's time to stop this madness," Trump said.
Trump said “not long ago, and you can't even believe these numbers, one in 10,000 children had autism, one in 10,000 and now it's one in 36.”
He is correct about the current rate being one in 36, per the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s not clear what year Trump was referencing for his “one in 10,000” statement, but in 2000 it was one in 150, according to the CDC.
There are reasonable explanations for why the rate is higher now than decades ago. The autism criteria shifted in 2013 when three diagnoses — autistic disorder; Asperger's syndrome; and pervasive developmental disorder, not otherwise specified — were merged into a singular autism spectrum disorder diagnosis, Evan H. Dart, University of South Florida associate professor in the school psychology program, previously told PolitiFact.
"This alone could explain large increases in medical diagnoses of autism since the 2000s, even more so compared to the 1980s," when autism first appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Dart said.
— Amy Sherman, PolitiFact
