“What a difference a president makes.”
Indeed.
The State of the Union is typically a well-watched but sepia-toned tradition filled with half promises, overwrought policy prescriptions and lofty goals.
If you’re a House or Senate Republican facing the stiff political winds heading into a difficult midterm election, perhaps you wanted some details on what President Donald Trump intends to do for the next eight months. Your political survival depends on it.
That didn’t happen.
The State of the Union under Trump is far more political theater than substance. He’s the master of ceremonies and the flash is what matters. Congressional Republicans are merely along for the ride, wherever it goes.
“Our country is winning so much,” Trump declared early in his address. “In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.”
The polls don’t show this, but for Trump, it’s self-evidently true. Trump wants a show, and he knows how to put one on, like he did Tuesday night. Whether it helped the GOP is very much unclear.
The props. Trump had the gold-medal winning U.S. men’s hockey team enter the House chamber from the press gallery. Trump then announced that he would give its goalie, Connor Hellebuyck, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There were a half-dozen chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A!” throughout the evening. A handful of Democrats heckled the president, defying House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ admonition to keep things in check.
Trump awarded the Legion of Merit to a Coast Guard rescue swimmer who saved more than 160 people during a deadly Texas flood last year. Trump announced Purple Hearts would go to two National Guard troops who were shot in D.C. while on patrol.
Family members of victims harmed by undocumented immigrants were honored. Erika Kirk, the widow of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk, got a shout-out from Trump. Trump had a Venezuelan political prisoner reunite with his niece.
Most stunningly, Trump gave out two Congressional Medals of Honor, the nation’s highest award for bravery. One went to Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, an Army helicopter pilot injured leading the January raid in Venezuela that captured President Nicolás Maduro. Slover appeared from a different gallery, leaning on a walker.
The second went to Captain Royce WIlliams, a 100-year-old Korean War pilot from the Navy who shot down four Soviet MiG jets during a heroic battle.
Trump also pummeled former President Joe Biden and Democrats, who he claimed left the United States in shambles.
“We’re lucky we have a country with people like this,” Trump said, noting Democrats were sitting down for nearly all of the speech. “Democrats are destroying our country. But we stopped it just in the nick of time, didn’t we?”
Trump’s offered few new policy ideas. He asked Congress to ban states from issuing commercial driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants. Trump also wants lawmakers to pass a bill to ban members and senators from trading stocks, an effort that’s stalled out at the moment.
Trump asked Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune to codify his most-favored nation status for prescription drugs into law. Trump then half-heartedly asked Congress to pass his health care plan; it’s gathered dust since he introduced it several months ago. Bipartisan efforts to extend Obamacare subsidies have fizzled out.
He pitched giving “often forgotten workers” the same retirement account as every federal worker. Asked how he’d do that, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Kristen Welker after the speech that they’d set it up through reconciliation. Reconciliation is a long shot at this point.
Trump urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, voter ID and proof-of-citizenship legislation that has no prayer of getting 60 votes in the Senate. Proponents want Thune to use the so-called “talking filibuster” to pass it, but Trump didn’t mention this. At one point, Trump did seem to prod “John” to pass the legislation, likely referring to Thune.
Yet overall, Trump’s speech was notably devoid of policy heft. Compare this to a State of the Union from Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, and you find a truly stunning difference.
Here are some other highlights from Trump’s 107-minute SOTU speech, the longest in U.S. history:
1) Trump talked about the conservative dream of a federal government with no income taxes, everything funded solely by tariffs. That America has been gone for more than a century and there’s no chance of a return to that system.
2) Trump announced a “war on fraud” led “by our great vice president, JD Vance.”
Trump tied this to immigration, pointing to the billions of dollars in fraud allegations leveled at the Somali community in Minnesota. These fraud claims on the right helped spur the harsh ICE immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, which in turn led to the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. Those killings helped spur the current 11-day shutdown for the Department of Homeland Security, which Trump only lightly touched upon.
Trump is clearly trying to recapture the political momentum on the immigration front. The scandal isn’t ICE’s brutal policies, it’s the fraud that led to the massive ICE operation.
“That’s the kind of money you’re talking about. We could balance our budget,” Trump asserted. Given that the budget deficit is estimated to be roughly $1.9 trillion in FY2026, you could eliminate all discretionary spending and still not balance the budget.
3) Trump did what he had to do. Sort of.
Trump rallied rank-and-file Republicans on the biggest political night of the year. The president showed them what he wants done — just declare victory on the economy and domestic policy, and then move ahead. Follow his lead.
This is easy for Republicans in safe seats, but all those GOP lawmakers in vulnerable seats aren’t going to find much new here.
Trump heads to Texas later this week. There are high-stakes races there, including a huge Senate GOP primary. Trump will continue his post-SOTU sales job, and we’ll see if the Lone Star State — and the country — is buying.
