Why is this President Trump’s first State of the Union of his second term?

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will give his first State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday. 

Though it will be his first official address to Congress, many might remember Trump’s speech to the legislature last year. Though the pomp and circumstance of the address remained, last year’s speech was technically not a “State of the Union” address. 

Many may remember last year’s joint address to Congress, where the Republican president spoke for a record-setting 100 minutes. The first speech in a president’s first year in office is not considered a State of the Union address.

That’s because a State of the Union address is intended as a look back on the prior year. Instead, newly inaugurated presidents typically use their first joint congressional addresses to look forward, setting a tone for their agenda. 

Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025, for his second term, so Tuesday’s speech will be classified as the first State of the Union address of his second term. 

The idea of not calling the first address the State of the Union is a relatively new practice in American history.

One stated belief is that when the president addresses Congress for the first time in the weeks after being sworn in, they haven’t been in charge long enough to announce what the “State of the Union” is. But that’s not the case, according to the Congressional Research Service.

“The past seven Presidents have chosen not to give an official State of the Union address the year they were first inaugurated, having just previously delivered an inaugural address,” the CRS said. “In each instance their first speech to a joint session of Congress closely followed their inauguration, but was not officially categorized as a ‘State of the Union Message.'”

The U.S. Constitution requires that the president update Congress and recommend policies, although the founding document doesn’t specify precisely when that address should take place.

Usually, presidents will deliver those remarks in January or February, reflecting on events of the previous year and outlining their policy priorities for the coming one. The message used to be known as “the President’s Annual Message to Congress.” In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began referring to it as the “Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union.”

Shortly after he was sworn in for his first term in 1981, Reagan addressed a joint session of Congress, remarks that were called “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery,” according to The American Presidency Project, at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton followed suit in their own first years in office, with 1989 and 1993 messages both entitled “Administration Goals.” In 2001, President George W. Bush’s speech was his “Budget Message.”

Trump’s remarks to Congress are scheduled to begin Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press and Chris McCrory contributed to this story.