Trump to make 'full-throated' case during primetime speech: former presidential speechwriters

The president will tout his domestic and international accomplishments, spotlight what the Trump administration has done for the economy, make a renewed push for Congress to pass additional border security funding and detail his plans for peace around the globe, according to details from the White House that were shared first with Fox News.

"It's a dramatic setting," Bill McGurn, a former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush, said of the speech, which is on equal footing with a State of the Union address in terms of importance.

McGurn said the first address to Congress by a president following their inauguration is "a great opportunity to broadcast their message far and wide."

"He's going to make his case," McGurn predicted.

Trump has been moving at warp speed during his opening six weeks back in the White House with a flurry of executive orders and actions. His moves not only fulfilled some of his major campaign trail promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles, quickly put his stamp on the federal government, make major cuts to the federal workforce and also settle some long-standing grievances.

Many of the moves Trump has taken have been controversial, including threatening tariffs on major trading partners, including Canada and Mexico, upending the nation's international agenda and freezing foreign aid, as well as a high-profile crackdown on illegal immigration.

DOGE has swept through federal agencies since Trump was inaugurated, rooting out what the White House argues was billions in wasteful federal spending. It has also taken a meat cleaver to the federal workforce, resulting in a massive downsizing of employees. The moves by DOGE have triggered a slew of lawsuits in response.

"I would write it as a triumph, and I would write it looking to the future," Clark Judge, a former speechwriter and special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, said when asked by Fox News Digital what he would say about DOGE if he were writing Trump's speech.

"Undoubtedly, he's going to explain how he sees the world," McGurn emphasized. "Donald Trump is not shy about saying what he thinks, so he's going to express it full-throated."

Additionally, he predicted that "there's going to be a lot of Republican support. Democrats, I can't imagine, will be enthusiastic about anything. So it could be very dramatic. People will be looking for boos and cheers."

Dan Cluchey, former senior speechwriter for President Joe Biden, had his own advice for Trump.

"What Donald Trump 'should' do is turn his focus outward on the American people rather than inward toward himself," Cluchey told Fox News Digital.

He argued that "Americans deserve an explanation as to why he is failing to address record egg prices, slashing vital funding for everything from cancer research to weather forecasting, threatening to decimate Medicaid and the Social Security Administration, torching our hard-earned heritage as the world's chief defender of democracy, and speeding the strong economy he inherited toward an utterly unnecessary collapse."

However, Cluchey predicted that "what Donald Trump *will* do, instead, is what he always does: fabricate the record and fixate on Donald Trump."