It was the longest modern State of the Union-style address, at roughly 100 minutes, and remarkable for its tone, range and reception.
It was pure Donald Trump—a tour de force of bold ideas, grand notions and vitriol. It had a laser focus on familiar themes from the campaign—securing the border, imposing tariffs, and ending wokeness and DEI. He drew attention to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s Wednesday statement of regret over last Friday’s Oval Office debacle. Mr. Trump can now sign the minerals deal and return to peace negotiations.
The president had some humdinger lines as in Democrats “kept saying we needed new legislation . . . to secure the border, but it turned out that all we needed was a new president.”
There were warm moments honoring ordinary Americans, from a 13-year-old fighting brain cancer being made an honorary Secret Service agent to the family of Corey Comperatore, who gave his life protecting his wife and daughter during last July’s attempted assassination of Mr. Trump.
There was the young Californian hoping to be the fourth generation in his family to serve in the military, whose West Point admission the president announced on camera. Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, both killed by illegal aliens, were honored—the former with a law bearing her name cracking down on violent criminals who are in the U.S. illegally, the latter with a wildlife refuge near her Texas home now named after her.
Democrats rarely applauded statements worthy of bipartisan approval. They’d have been smart to join in when Mr. Trump touched on topics that resonate with Americans. Part of the reason they didn’t is the warped worldview of the party’s left. Part is their deep personal hatred of Mr. Trump. Part is a concern that he’s a threat to America’s constitutional order. Part was Mr. Trump’s dozen or so attacks on his predecessor. (Note to White House: Joe Biden is better forgotten than assailed. Mentioning him makes the boss look smaller.)
There were an abnormal number of presidential superlatives. Mr. Trump boasted he’d “accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four or eight years.” He claimed to have had “the most successful” presidential first month “in the history of our nation,” with only George Washington coming close. Most Americans expect such hyperbole from Mr. Trump; many largely ignore it.
Where he potentially created a problem was in exaggerating and overpromising. This may not affect him directly; Americans are used to that from him and he isn’t running again. But Republicans could be in for a rough time in 2026—if Democrats get their act together.
Mr. Trump said his administration already discovered and recovered “hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.” Then he said that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency had found 1.3 million fraudulent Social Security recipients who are supposedly in their 150s and 130,000 listed as 160 or older. Smart Democrats in close House and Senate races will demand Republican opponents produce the prosecutions and the money they recovered.
In both cases, Republican candidates will find themselves in the awkward position of explaining that DOGE might have found tens of billions in wasteful spending and a handful of missent Social Security checks, but fraud in both instances was grossly overstated.
Then there are the tariffs. Mr. Trump admitted “there will be a little disturbance, but we are OK with that.” Maybe not. If tariffs drive up prices, consumers will feel it as they shop just as they did when inflation destroyed Mr. Biden. They’ll also see how tariffs affect where they work as companies cut costs and raise prices.
