President Donald Trump briefly mentioned the war in Gaza in a sprawling address to Congress on Tuesday, referencing the ceasefire and hostage release deal his team helped broker in January.
He also briefly spoke of plans for a “Golden Dome” modeled off of Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, which is funded in large part by the United States. That represented a new name for an idea laid out in an executive order Trump issued in January, when he called for a proposal for an “Iron Dome for America.”
But notably absent was any mention of his proposal to depopulate Gaza and bring it under American control, a shocking announcement first made one month ago that set off a diplomatic firestorm. It has been endorsed by Israel but roundly rejected by other Middle Eastern states as well as U.S. lawmakers of both parties. Since then, Trump has alternately backed away from the proposal and embraced it by posting AI-generated content depicting “Trump Gaza.”
Trump alluded to the discourse around the war, but his mention of the conflict on Tuesday was limited to a reference to the Abraham Accords, the 2020 normalization deals his White House brokered between Israel and four Arab countries, and a few sentences referring to Israeli hostages held by Hamas, though he did not say the words “Israel” or “Hamas” in that part of the speech.
“In the Middle East, we’re bringing back our hostages from Gaza,” he said. “In my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations, the Abraham Accords. And now we’re going to build on that foundation to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region.”
He continued, “A lot of things are happening in the Middle East — people haven’t been talking about that so much lately, with everything going on with Ukraine and Russia. A lot of things are happening in the Middle East. It’s a rough neighborhood, actually.”
The president did not reference the handful of relatives of Israeli hostages in the chamber, including the parents of Edan Alexander, an American-Israeli who remains hostage, nor Noa Argamani, a former hostage who was rescued by Israel and invited to the address by House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The president’s one utterance of the word “Israel” came earlier in the speech, when he asked Congress to provide funding for a “Golden Dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland.”
He added moments later, “Israel has it, other places have it, and the United States should have it, too.”
The speech, which ran more than 90 minutes, focused on Trump’s actions on immigration, slashing the federal workforce via Elon Musk’s efforts and defending his imposition of tariffs. He also championed his executive orders opposing diversity, equity and inclusion programs, declaring, “Our country will be woke no longer.”
Trump taunted Democrats throughout the speech and once referred to Sen. Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas,” a racist nickname that he has long used for her. Democrats protested the speech, with several walking out near the end. Democratic Rep. Al Green was kicked out of the chamber near the beginning of the speech when he heckled Trump.
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