By Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto, Fred Backus, Kabir Khanna
Updated on: March 5, 2025 / 9:18 AM EST / CBS News
A large majority of speech watchers approved of what they heard from President Trump’s joint address to Congress Tuesday night.
The viewership was heavily Republican — historically a president’s party draws more of their own partisans. This was no exception, and they liked what they heard.
This CBS News/YouGov survey interviewed a nationally representative sample of speech watchers immediately following the president’s address to Congress.
Most speech viewers described the president as “presidential, “inspiring” and more “unifying” than “divisive.” A big majority also called it “entertaining.”
Most said Mr. Trump talked a lot about issues they care about.
Most viewers who tuned in say the speech made them feel “hopeful” and “proud.”
The Democrats who did watch mostly described it making them feel “worried,” and for 4 in 10, “angry.”
Coming in, viewers said they wanted to hear about plans for lowering prices, and about two-thirds of those who watched tonight think the president has a clear plan for dealing with that.
Big majorities of viewers liked the plans they heard on immigration, wasteful government spending and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. A relatively smaller majority liked what they heard on tariffs.
Most viewers thought the president described the crime problem in the U.S. accurately.
Most viewers approved of the speaker of the House having a member of Congress removed from the chamber for interrupting Mr. Trump’s speech.
This CBS News survey is based on 1,207 interviews of adults who watched the President’s address to Congress on Tuesday night. An initial survey was conducted by YouGov between February 28- March 3, 2025 using a nationally representative sample of 11,406 U.S. adults, including 4,131 respondents who planned to watch the address. Respondents who planned to watch the speech were asked if they were willing to be reinterviewed. Only those who watched the speech were included in the analysis.
The initial sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, and education based on the U.S. Census American Community Survey, and the U.S. Census Current Population Survey, and 2024 Presidential vote. The final sample of post-speech re-interviews was weighted to be representative of those who said they would watch the President’s address according to gender, age, race, education, geographic region, 2024 Presidential vote, and pre-speech partisan identification. The margin of error is ±3.4 pts.
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Anthony Salvanto, Ph.D., is CBS News’ executive director of elections and surveys. He oversees the CBS News Poll and all surveys across topics and heads the CBS News Decision Desk that estimates outcomes on election nights
