Highlights: Trump casts a rosy vision of America while chastising his political enemies at State of the Union

Trump has highlighted immigration since the very first speech in which he announced his 2016 presidential campaign. And on Tuesday night, he revived much of the same language he’s used throughout the past decade, blasting “criminal aliens” and warning of “drug lords, murderers all over our country.”

What he didn’t mention: the most aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that threatened to bring the U.S. to the brink earlier this year. Nor did he remark on the deaths of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month at the hands of federal agents.

Instead it was Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., who shouted that “Alex wasn’t a criminal,” referring to Alex Pretti, one of the citizens killed in Minneapolis.

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The president soon took aim at Democrats and blamed them directly for much of the nation’s ills.

Trump said rising health care premiums are “caused by you,” suggested Democrats “are not protecting” Social Security and blamed them for the nation’s affordability crunch. “You caused that problem. You caused that problem,” Trump said as he glared at the Democratic side of the room.

He seemed to get angrier as the speech progressed. “These people are crazy, I’m telling you, they’re crazy,” he said. “Democrats are destroying this country.”

Trump’s MAGA base loves such aggression. It’s unclear, however, if the rest of the country feels the same.

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The president has already built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades. And in his speech, he outlined a rationale for using those forces to launch a major military strike against Iran.

Trump said Iran and its proxies have “spread nothing but terrorism, death and hate,” adding that its leaders have killed at least 32,000 protesters in recent weeks. He also warned that the nation has developed missiles that can threaten Europe and is working on ones “that will soon reach” the U.S.

Trump’s MAGA base has long cheered his promise to end costly wars abroad. It’s unclear how they might respond to another major military action in the Middle East.

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About 36% of U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in early February. That’s down slightly from last March, when 42% of Americans approved of his job performance.

That stability underscores just how difficult it is to change Americans’ minds about Trump, more than a decade after he launched his first presidential run.

He remains largely unpopular among the vast majority of Democrats and independents, but Republicans are still strongly behind him — even if there were some signs in a January AP-NORC poll that his second term might not be living up to their expectations yet.

For a president who always seems to be spoiling for a fight, Trump also tried to summon Americans’ innate patriotic impulses.

In addition to the hockey team, he singled out war heroes and those who had taken brave stands in other countries, using the moment to bestow numerous presidential medals in an effort to give the address a more positive gloss.

In one revealing moment, Trump lamented why he couldn’t give a congressional medal to himself.

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Much of the nation is worried about the direction of the economy, but Trump says the good times are here.

The president insisted repeatedly that the economy is roaring and rising costs are no longer a problem.

“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said. He also cheered the cost of gasoline, mortgage rates, prescription drug prices and the stock market: “Millions and millions of Americans are all gaining. Everybody’s up, way up.”

Every president uses the State of the Union to promote policies. But such optimism as so many Americans are feeling economic strains risks painting Trump as out of touch. Just 39% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s handling of the economy in February, according to AP-NORC polling.

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In response to Trump’s record-length address, the Virginia governor gave a response that lasted around the same amount of time as rebuttals in past years.

Regardless of party, the opposition rebuttal is routinely much shorter than the president’s remarks.

Immigration helped carry Trump to victory in 2024, and it has long been a signature issue for him. But he barely discussed the aggressive and highly consequential steps he took to reshape the immigration system during his first year in office.

He didn’t talk about key initiatives under his $170-billion immigration enforcement package, which Congress approved: vastly expanding immigration detention, doubling the size of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and building out the border wall.

Nor did he talk about major policy changes like attempting to end birthright citizenship, denying bond to people in immigration custody, suspending asylum at the border and revoking legal status for hundreds of thousands of people who are in the United States on humanitarian grounds.

And he didn’t discuss his mass deportation campaign, weeks after Minnesota’s largest cities turned into battlegrounds between immigration officers and protesters and resulted in the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by authorities.

The flood of immigration agents into cities like Minneapolis is unnecessary, is wasteful and spreads fear, Spanberger said in her response.

“Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings,” she said.

“Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.”

Trump said in his speech that he’s announcing a new $1,000 match from the government for people saving for retirement who don’t get a matching contribution from their employers.

But that’s not quite how it would work.

Trump’s proposal is not actually new, as it’s based on the 2022 law Secure 2.0 that establishes a retirement account match for eligible accounts starting in 2027, according to the White House. This means Trump would be taking advantage of a law signed by then President Joe Biden, who he routinely attacks.

Under the law, there would be a match of $1,000 in the form of a credit for annual retirement savings of $2,000 by an individual.

Spanberger framed her remarks around asking Americans whether Trump is actually working for them — or whether he is working in his own self-interest.

She made the case for the latter, saying, “We all know the answer is no.”

She pointing to various actions by the president including “cozying up” to billionaires to fund a new White House ballroom.

“This is not what our founders envisioned,” Spanberger said. “Not by a long shot.”

Spanberger criticized how Trump’s mass deportation agenda is being carried out in places like Chicago and Minneapolis.

Her comments came a day after a whistleblower told Congress about how new ICE recruits are being trained and problems with that training.

Ryan Schwank accused the Department of Homeland Security of dismantling the training program for new deportation officers and lying about what they were doing.

DHS has said there has been no compromise or corner cutting when it comes to preparing new officers.

Throughout her Democratic response to Trump’s address, Spanberger posed a series of questions to Americans, asking whether they feel life has improved since he returned to office.

The Democrat, who flipped a Republican-held office last year, is hoping voters across the country will share that assessment in November’s midterm elections.

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger is arguing in her Democratic rebuttal that costs remain high for many Americans more than a year into Trump’s second term.

Her message — that families are still struggling under the president’s policies — is one Democrats plan to take nationwide ahead of the midterm elections.

Party leaders point to Spanberger’s double-digit victory in Virginia last November as validation of a disciplined, cost-focused campaign they now hope to replicate across the country.

The president asked first lady Melania Trump to present the medal to Royce Williams for his actions in a secret mission during the Korean War.

A military aide was seen bringing the esteemed award down the stairs of the House gallery, where Melania Trump and Williams were sitting. She placed it around his neck, to a standing ovation in the chamber.

“He didn’t even want to tell his wife. But the legend grew and grew,” Trump said of the clandestine mission. “But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.”

Republicans gave the president their final standing ovation of the night as he concluded his remarks. GOP lawmakers then proceeded to mingle in the chamber. Some walked up to congratulate Trump on the celebratory mood in the chamber,

Democrats also rose, though with no fanfare. The caucus almost immediately turned and streamed out of the chamber, without applause. Some could be seen scoffing and shaking their heads shortly after Trump wrapped up his remarks and descended from the dais.

Trump’s 108-minute speech broke his own record for longest presidential address to Congress.

The previous longest was his 100-minute speech last year.

Before 2025, President Bill Clinton had the record with speeches clocking in at 89 minutes in 2000 and 85 minutes in 1995.

Following last month’s capture of then-President Nicolás Maduro by elite U.S. military forces, Trump said Tuesday, his administration is working with acting President Delcy Rodriguez to “unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly.”

Among those who have suffered for years in Venezuela are thousands of people who have been detained for months or years for political reasons. Venezuela’s ruling party denied holding people for their political beliefs, but it began releasing hundreds of them following Maduro’s capture.

They included former presidential candidate Enrique Márquez, whom Trump’s administration invited to the State of the Union address to surprise a relative who was sitting in the gallery.

Trump presented a helicopter pilot who was wounded in the raid that captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Trump said that Army Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover was the pilot of the lead CH-47 Chinook helicopter during the raid.

“Eric steered the Chinook under the cover of night and descended swiftly upon Maduro’s heavily protected military fortress,” Trump said.

“Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip, one bullet after another. He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces,” Trump added before explaining that Slover still piloted his helicopter back to safety before telling his copilot that he was about to pass out from his wounds.

Trump also said that ten other servicemembers will also be receiving medals at a private ceremony that will soon be held at the White House.

President Donald Trump has set a record by delivering the longest-ever State of the Union speech or joint address to Congress, speaking for more than 1 hour and 41 minutes Tuesday night.

Trump set a record last year for the longest address to a joint session of Congress, speaking for 1 hour, 39 minutes and 32 seconds. That speech was technically not a State of the Union address because it occurred only six weeks into his term.

The previous record for a state of the Union was set by President Bill Clinton in 2000: 1 hour, 28 minutes and 49 seconds.

That’s according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara, which has tracked speech length since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

The president said that he would prefer a deal with Iran but they haven’t said what U.S. officials want to hear, which is that they will not build a nuclear weapon.

But over series of negotiations between Tehran and Washington, Iranian officials have repeated said that their nuclear program is peaceful and that they vow not to create a weapon. Earlier Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said it again. “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon,” he wrote on X.

The president appeared to reference the killing of Jalisco New Generation Cartel leader Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as “El Mencho.”

The Mexican army killed Oseguera Cervantes on Sunday during an attempt to capture him in the western state of Jalisco. Both Mexico and the United States confirmed that there was U.S. intelligence support for the operation.

“We’ve also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all. You saw that yesterday,” Trump said.

Some 70 people died in the operation and violence that erupted after it.

The lawmakers, the first two Muslim women ever elected to Congress, exited together as the president recounted his administration’s military operations in Venezuela and the Middle East.

Omar and Tlaib mocked and shouted condemnations at the president during his remarks.

While Republicans gave repeated standing ovations to the president’s claims that he had successfully pushed NATO allies to increase their military spending to the 5% mandate outlined in the NATO charter, Democrats gave a more mixed reaction.

Some foreign policy stalwarts, including Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, repeatedly clapped at the president’s comments on NATO. Other Democrats had muted responses to Trump’s comments on the war in Ukraine and false claims that he brokered peace deals in conflicts around the world.

Trump bragged that he is ending conflicts around the world, then in the next breath bragged how the U.S. last year carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump is again threatening war against the Middle Eastern nation, building up the largest naval force in the region in decades. He said that he preferred to solve the conflict through diplomacy, but said he would absolutely not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

“No nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on earth,” the president added.

Among highlighting the several conflicts he claims to have ended, the president mentioned the ongoing, fragile ceasefire deal in Gaza: “I negotiated every single hostage, both living and dead, has been returned home. Can you believe that? Nobody thought it was possible.”

While the U.S.-brokered deal between Israel and Hamas has halted major military operations, freed the last hostages held by Hamas and ramped up aid deliveries to Gaza, a lasting resolution remains elusive for the two-year war ignited by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack into Israel.

After the shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington DC last November, the Trump administration announced a flurry of decisions aimed at making it harder for some foreigners to come to or stay in the U.S. The administration announced it was halting visas for Afghans in late November, reexamining Green Cards for people from countries “of concern,” and pausing asylum applications.

The administration said it was necessary to take those steps to make sure people coming into the country or who were already here don’t pose a security threat.
But immigrants’ rights groups and humanitarian organizations said that the administration’s actions were collective punishment for people who had nothing to do with the shooting.

Trump said the DHS shutdown is preventing the federal government from “helping people clean up their snow,” referring to the massive snowstorm that impacted much of the Northeast this week.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, housed under DHS, rarely helps states with snow cleanup, except in some instances of record or near-record snowfall, or when an ice storm causes catastrophic damage. States first request a disaster declaration, which the president must approve.

A government shutdown also doesn’t necessarily stop FEMA disaster response: The more than 10,000 staff who make up the bulk of FEMA’s disaster response and recovery force continue to work and be paid during a government shutdown, and disaster spending can continue for as long as the agency’s non-lapsing Disaster Relief Fund has money.

In a special shoutout to his top diplomat, Trump made a special mention to Marco Rubio, his secretary of state, who has been in charge of Trump’s ‘America First’ mandate for the last year.

“You have done a great job, great secretary of state,” Trump said as Republicans gave Rubio a standing ovation.

The president called for a ban on states transitioning the gender of children against their parents’ wishes.

“Surely we can all agree, no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will,” Trump said. “Who would believe that we’re even talking about it? We must ban it, and we must ban it immediately.”

Trump then gestured to the Democratic side of the room, saying, “look, nobody stands up.”

Trump announced that he had awarded the family of Spec. Sarah Beckstrom and her colleague, Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe with the Purple Heart.

The announcement prompted several minutes of bipartisan clapping as he honored Evalea and Gary Beckstrom, the mother and father of Beckstrom, 24, and Wolfe.

The West Virginia Army National Guard member was fatally wounded Nov. 26 in an ambush that also critically wounded Wolfe, as they patrolled a subway station blocks from the White House. Beckstrom died Thanksgiving Day. The two were among the National Guard members deployed to Washington as part of Trump’s executive order last August to battle what he said was rampant crime.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was wounded in the attack, has been charged with an array of offenses in the shooting. He has pleaded not guilty and remains in custody. Authorities say he drove across country from his home in Washington state to execute the attack.

This statistic, which Trump frequently cites as one of his accomplishments, is highly exaggerated. Although he has helped mediate relations among many nations, his impact isn’t as clear-cut as he makes it seem. In at least two instances of peace he claims credit for achieving, there were no wars to end.

The conflicts Trump counts among those he has solved are between Israel and Hamas, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, India and Pakistan, Serbia and Kosovo, Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Cambodia and Thailand.

Among those in the audience was the mother of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was fatally stabbed by a man on a North Carolina commuter train last August.

The killing, captured on camera in Charlotte, sparked intense criticism over why the suspect, Decarlos Brown Jr., was on the street despite 14 prior criminal arrests.

The Trump administration has pointed to the killing to argue that local leaders, judges and policies in Democratic-led cities are failing to protect residents from violent crime.

Brown has been charged with a federal crime that could carry the death penalty.

Trump called on Congress to pass a bill barring states from granting commercial driver’s licenses to immigrants in the country illegally. He wants to call it “Dalilah’s law,” to be named after Dalilah Coleman, a young girl who survived critical injuries from a 2024 car crash and was in the audience.

Dalilah drew applause when she smiled and waved in her father’s arms. Trump called her a “fantastic inspiration.”

The Department of Homeland Security highlighted Dalilah’s story in a September news release, saying she was 5 when she was injured in a multi-car pileup caused by a tractor trailer driven by an immigrant from India who came to the country illegally. DHS officials said the man was released into the country by the Biden administration.

Experts say voter fraud is extremely rare, and very few noncitizens ever slip through the cracks.

For example a recent review in Michigan identified 15 people who appear to be noncitizens who voted in the 2024 general election, out of more than 5.7 million ballots cast in the state.

Of those, 13 were referred to the attorney general for potential criminal charges. One involved a voter who has since died, and the final case remains under investigation.

Trump introduced Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who received cheers from Republicans in the chamber.

“America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind,” Trump said in remarks that received a bipartisan standing ovation.

The president urged Senate Majority Leader John Thune to bring up legislation that would impose new proof-of-citizenship requirements ahead of the midterm elections.

Trump said the bill is “country-saving” and “it should happen before anything else happens.”

Thune has said he supports the bill but has not yet put it on the Senate floor, where it is likely to be rejected because of a lack of Democratic support. Some Republicans have urged him to bypass Senate procedure to try and pass it.

Trump said “this should be an easy one” and called out Thune directly.

“We have to stop it John,” Trump said.

“They saw the videos, Mr. President. They saw the videos. You’re killing Americans!,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib yelled at Trump as the president defended his immigration policies. “Not shooting them!”

Republicans gave a standing ovation to Trump’s comments on immigration enforcement and calls to fund the Department of Homeland Security.

“You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up,” Trump said to Democrats.

“Alex wasn’t a criminal” Tlaib yelled at the president, referencing to the killing of Alex Pretti, a Minneapolis nurse, by federal agents during an enhanced immigration enforcement operation. “You’re killing Americans!” she shouted repeatedly.