Only one president in U.S. history has gone before Congress during a State of the Union address and said that the state of the union was "not good."
It wasn't President Trump on Tuesday.
It was Gerald Ford in 1975 with the country facing similar economic problems to today's, including high prices. People continue to say that prices and the cost of living are their top concerns, and they blame Trump's policies, particularly his tariffs, for making things worse.
But Trump ignored those economic warts, instead boasting that "our nation is back" and that it had achieved a "turnaround for the ages."
It all amounted to a fairly standard Trump speech. It hit familiar notes on immigration and culture, was wide-ranging and record-setting — the longest spoken State of the Union address in recent history at 1 hour and 48 minutes — and had a usual amount of Trump showmanship.
Here are five takeaways from what Trump had to say in this midterm election year:
1. Trump ignored the difficulties people are facing with the economy.
Voters have been saying for a long time that prices and the cost of living are their top concerns. It's largely what has landed Trump and the Republican Party in a precarious position ahead of this year's midterm elections.
And yet, Trump largely ignored the economic hardships many are feeling. He gave a rosy outlook, touting the stock market and lower gas prices. But the reality is, it's just not how voters are feeling, and Trump did not have an "I feel your pain" moment in this speech.
Trump's approval ratings are at or near record lows, and voters are blaming his policies, particularly his tariffs, for making things worse. In this speech, he doubled down on those tariffs. With the Supreme Court justices sitting just feet away, he criticized their ruling last week that many of his tariffs were illegal. He said he had come up with "alternative" legal justifications for keeping them in place.
2. Trump's midterm message is … not new
There was no novel political message from the president in this speech. Trump talked a lot about his political hobby horses: the woes of immigration, crime and the culture wars. He tried to hit a reset button on immigration, focusing on border security and crimes committed replete with gory anecdotal details.
It's a tactic that's long been employed by Trump, the GOP and conservative media to advocate against immigration, particularly when data doesn't back up allegations of higher levels of crime committed by those in the country without legal status.
Trump's message worked in 2024, but two very important things have changed: (1) he owns the economy now, and people don't feel great about it and (2) he has a record now on immigration. And while people have said in polling that they are in favor of deportations, they're not happy with how his administration has gone about them — especially since most of those rounded up have no criminal record — and after two Americans were killed by federal officers in Minnesota in January.
3. There was no legislative agenda.
State of the Union addresses can sometimes descend into laundry lists of things the president wants Congress to accomplish.
Not this speech.
There were only about half a dozen specific things Trump asked Congress to do:
- "Codify" Trump's attempts to lower drug prices, though it's unclear how.
- Pass the "Stop Insider Trading Act" that would restrict the Wall Street trading of members of Congress and their spouses.
- Pass what Trump is calling the "Delilah Law" that would ban commercial licenses for immigrants in the country without legal status.
- Restore funding for the Department of Homeland Security. After the killing of the two Americans in Minnesota, Democrats refused to authorize new funding for DHS, leading to a partial government shutdown.
- Pass the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to vote. Proven instances of fraud, including by noncitizens, are very rare, but Trump claims there is "rampant" cheating. It's something he has used to justify his 2020 election loss, and it's a claim he could use to cast doubt on this year's outcome — if Republicans lose.
While those are certainly consequential, they don't add up to a major legislative push. That's not surprising, though, since Trump has spent the better part of the last year trying to consolidate power in the White House.
4. The Democratic response had a wide range.
State of the Union speeches have turned from staid to raucous in the past 16 years. Outbursts and protests have become more common. That was certainly the case Tuesday night. Some Democrats boycotted. Others, like Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, shouted at the president about things she found outrageous during the speech. Rep. Al Green of Texas carried a sign that read, "Black people aren't apes," a reference to a Trump social media post featuring a video that depicted former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. For the second year in a row, Green was removed from the chamber.
Then there was Abigail Spanberger, the governor of Virginia, who had the task of delivering the official Democratic response. Channeling the campaign message that got her elected in November, she focused on the economy. Trump, by not addressing the difficulties people are feeling about the economy, gave Spanberger an opening, and she took it.
She hammered home a sharp message that many Democratic candidates in swing districts will likely aim to emulate. It has a good chance of success, as Democrats look to flip only a handful of seats to take control of the House, and midterm elections are not kind to the party in power — especially when the president is unpopular.
Come 2028, though, there could be a reckoning on the horizon for the Democratic Party on what it stands for and what direction it wants to take the country in a post-Trump world.
5. None of this will likely matter much politically because views of Trump are "baked in."
After the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll was released last week, pollster Lee Miringoff, who conducts the poll with his colleagues at Marist University, said Trump had an opportunity "to try and reset with the nation, but it's a tall order when views about him are so baked in."
Instead of trying to reach out beyond his base, he resorted to trying to bait Democrats, calling them "crazy" in an effort to position himself as "normal" on things like immigration, crime and transgender rights.
And he turned the address into a show. The gold-medal winning Olympic men's hockey team was there. So were veterans, who were decorated, live on-camera, with medals of honor.
Trump may have missed an opportunity to speak to voters' concerns, especially since presidents don't get that many opportunities to speak to the nation in prime time.
But, for Trump, no matter how things are going, the show must go on — and it will for roughly three more years.
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