Look right, look left: Trump will survey a landscape transformed in speech to Congress

Look right, look left: Trump will survey a landscape transformed in speech to Congress

WASHINGTON − One year later, it's not just the president standing at the podium who will be different.
When President Donald Trump speaks to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, the political landscape he will survey from the dais has been transformed since a defiant Joe Biden warned in his final State of the Union address that the nation faced a choice between democracy and despotism.
This year, in the congressional ranks arrayed before Trump, four of the seats occupied by Democratic senators last year are now held by Republicans, and the GOP is in control of the Senate. The number of House Republicans has ticked down by one, still enough to hold the narrowest of margins for a majority.
And since the inauguration six weeks ago, the changes have cascaded.