Trump’s address to Congress showed the country’s stark partisan divide

Trump set a tone of division almost from his first words, calling his predecessor Joe Biden the worst president in history and chiding Democrats as so stinting in their praise of him they would not even grant him perfunctory applause.

He placed himself alongside the country’s first president, George Washington, when discussing what he said were the flood of early achievements of his second term.

He was speaking to a house divided. Republicans stood and cheered. For Democrats, it was silence, with occasional shouts of protest, with the only applause when he announced that Ukraine wanted to restart peace negotiations.

Trump leaned hard into cultural flashpoints — his opposition to affirmative action, diversity programs and transgender rights.