Donald Trump used his State of the Union address to proclaim his first year in office a success, hailing a “turnaround for the ages” despite low public approval ratings ahead of November’s midterm elections. The speech, which ran for just under two hours, was the longest ever delivered, and came after months of turmoil for the Republican president, including a contentious immigration crackdown and faltering progress on lowering the cost of living.
Offering few new policy pledges, Trump announced that Vice-President JD Vance would lead a “war on fraud” and claimed to have negotiated a “ratepayer protection pledge” to mitigate the impact of new data centres on household electricity costs. However, the speech was also interspersed with falsehoods, including a claim that a Ukrainian refugee was murdered by an immigrant when the suspect is a US citizen, and a promise to protect Medicaid despite legislation that mandates cuts expected to cost millions their healthcare.
Trump criticised the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on tariffs, calling it “unfortunate” and “disappointing”, as three of the four justices who attended watched from the front row. He was less restrained towards Democratic lawmakers, whom he described as “crazy”, and Somali immigrants, labelling them “pirates who ransacked Minnesota”. On Iran, he expressed a preference for diplomacy but vowed never to allow the “world’s number one sponsor of terror” to possess a nuclear weapon.
The president also honoured a series of guests in the gallery, including the Olympic men’s hockey team and a national guard soldier wounded in a shooting, and awarded the Medal of Honor to a Korean war veteran and a helicopter pilot injured in the January raid on Nicolás Maduro. Democrats, meanwhile, staged what one party leader called “silent defiance”, refraining from applause throughout much of the speech.
