President Donald Trump went to a hockey victory party on Tuesday night and a State of the Union Address broke out.
Trump weaved a pageant of national unity, rampant prosperity and American greatness in the opening stanzas of his annual report on “the hottest country in the world” at a moment when his popularity is near historic lows. His habitual search for silver linings wasn’t just for show. He needed to use his biggest TV audience of the year to win back Americans souring on his one-time strengths on immigration and economic policy.
The president took inspiration from members of the Olympic gold medal-winning Team USA men’s hockey team in the gallery of the House of Representatives — who Sunday pulled off the rare feat in a tortured political age of giving both red and blue America something to cheer.
Skillful, moving tributes to American heroes punctuated the speech — that often resembled an awards ceremony and a patriotic dress rehearsal for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations later this year. Trump leavened his abrasive image by doling out honors, including to a 100-year-old Korean War Veteran, and reunited a woman with her uncle who was freed from a prison in Venezeuela.
“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it,” Trump said. “People are asking me, ‘Please, please, please, Mister President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore.’”
Yet as the longest-ever State of the Union address dragged deep into its second hour, the old Trump was back. The president lashed out at Democrats for not standing to cheer him, branding them “sick” and reminding some voters why they don’t like him — with tirades against undocumented migrants and false claims of election cheating.
Still, optics are important for aging, second term presidents. And Trump projected energy and vigor, commanding the chamber and underscoring, for all his divisiveness, that he’s still the nation’s dominant political personality. Apart from some bitter asides, Trump managed to control his temper and mood. Republicans who fear his rambling angry tirades will be relieved that he at least gave the best possible rendition of their message for their most devoted voters.
It was especially important for the 79-year-old to quell a background narrative that he’s increasingly a lame duck, especially after the Supreme Court Friday triggered his fury by knocking back his tariffs in the worst defeat since he returned to the White House. Trump shouted so loudly, as when he proclaimed he’d engineered “a turnaround for the ages,” that he distorted the sound from his microphone.
But the question dogging the president as he rode up to Capitol Hill in his Beast limousine was whether he could change the political trajectory of a year that is trending poorly for Republicans nine months before midterm elections.
A new CNN/SSRS poll this week showed just 32% of Americans think he has the right priorities. His approval rating among adults has dipped to just 36%.
So, it was imperative for Trump to demonstrate to voters who recalled him for a rare non-consecutive second term that he has answers — especially on the crisis of affordability that has hounded them for years.
But while Trump conjured truly affecting moments Tuesday, it was hard to believe that he’d transformed negative perceptions of his leadership that has Republicans fearing a meltdown in November.
The President does have some good economic news to share. He’s right that inflation is lower than at the record-breaking peaks of the Biden administration. The price of eggs — one of his favorite staple economic metrics — is down — as farmers restock their flocks after an avian flu epidemic.
Yet often, his claims for an economic resurgence were selective. Grocery prices are still higher than is comfortable for most American voters. He promised to overhaul health care — as he’s being doing for each of his five years in the White House — although has never advanced a serious proposal through Congress.
His claims to have slashed the prices of prescription drugs overstates the impact of the proposal and ignores the way he’s presided over the expiry of Affordable Care Act subsidies that has made health care unaffordable for millions of people.
Voters will filter the salesman president’s promises through their lived experience. For many, his claim of a new economic “golden age” won’t survive their next trips to the supermarket.
Trump prospers politically when he can identify an enemy.
“You caused that problem,” he told Democrats in the House chamber as he fulminated about affordability. But voters delivered their verdicts on former President Joe Biden’s administration in November 2024.
Trump could turn this around — by spending every day of every week until the midterm elections working to address affordability — perhaps with rallies outside grocery stores or by hauling lawmakers down to the White House to cajole them into passing bills.
But he spends more time using government to seek vengeance against his enemies, threatening American allies, and churning out vitriol on his social media feeds than he does in empathizing with the cost of living.
And familiarity may be breeding contempt. He’s dominated the national political psyche for more than a decade. By now, there can’t be many Americans who’ve not made up their minds. And there seemed little in Tuesday’s speech to reassure Black male, Hispanic and independent voters who ditched Democrats for him in 2024 and expanded his coalition to stick with the GOP next time.
And the longer he spoke, Trump undermined his message of unity. His fierce attacks on Somali migrants invoked the recent showdown between ICE agents and protestors in Minnesota that alienated many independent voters. Trump did not mention Renee Good and Alex Pretti who were killed by federal agents.
He spent long minutes defending policies that a majority of voters’ dislike. Like tariffs — that are helping to spike costs. And Trump injected new poison into American democracy by reviving his false claims he won the 2020 election and seemed to lay the groundwork for a new election morass in November. “They have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat,” he said of Democrats.
Trump’s address took place amid the biggest US military build-up in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a new showdown looms with Iran.
“I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror, which they are, by far, to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen,” he said, without explaining how this was possible given he claims to have “obliterated” such aspirations in a US raid last year. Trump says he wants a deal. But the president who first came to office vowing no more foreign wars looks increasingly likely to start a new one.
Trump needed to tell a fresh story Tuesday night.
But he ended up demonstrating instead that while the country can unite to cheer a new Miracle on Ice, a political coming together remains an impossible dream.
