Trump’s Supersized State of the Union

National Review Online

Wednesday, February 25, 2026

 

The State of the Union address is one of the few opportunities the president of the United States has to command a TV audience of millions — hence the temptation to hold forth at length with strung-together applause lines.

 

And, like Mae West, President Trump can resist anything but temptation.

 

He spoke on Tuesday night for nearly two hours and made his case that we are, as he likes to say, the hottest country in the world, in a mostly upbeat presentation.

 

Trump has things to boast about. He closed the southern border. He hit the Iranian nuclear program. He has struck blows against DEI and contributed to the rollback of trans insanity. He has massively deregulated. He signed a tax bill that, despite some unfortunate gimmicks, makes permanent the tax cuts from his first term. Military recruitment is up and fentanyl-trafficking down.

 

The economy was a major focus of Trump’s speech. After discontent over the cost of living in 2024 helped return him to the White House, people are still discontented over the cost of living.

 

Trump made the case that things are headed in the right direction, and real wages have indeed been increasing. The problem is that talking people out of how they’re feeling about the economy tends to be very difficult for an elected official, and the inflation rate is, while down significantly, still too high.

 

The new initiatives the president advanced in his speech to address the cost of living are either insignificant or not going to pass Congress. It’d be great if Republicans could pass a consumer-oriented health-care reform, but that’s not in the offing.

 

The policy that he has unilateral control over — or purports to have unilateral control over — that most directly affects prices is tariffs. As he has made abundantly clear, though, he’s bent on maintaining them rather than giving way in light of last week’s Supreme Court decision and the evidence that they aren’t working as intended. In his speech, he took more swipes at the Court and repeated his pro-tariff catechism.

 

He excoriated illegal immigration and taunted Democrats for not standing up for the proposition that the first duty of the U.S. government is to protect U.S. citizens and not illegal aliens. This was just one instance of Trump needling the Democrats pretty effectively. (Judging by the occasional cutaway shots, Democrats spent much of the speech glaring.)

 

As a matter of performance, it often had the feel of a Trump rally inside the congressional chamber, with its over-the-top boastfulness, informal asides, dubious claims, pointed partisan jabs, and sheer length.

 

Ever the showman, he repeatedly recognized inspiring people in the balcony, from the gold medal–winning U.S. hockey team to a 100-year-old vet, and even bestowed honors on them in real time. Associating himself with these people and fondly relating their stories unquestionably helped his cause.

 

That said, these speeches matter much less than they used to. For all the sound and occasional fury, nothing from the address is likely to alter the trajectory of the midterms.