Trump’s State of the Union Address: The Purest Ugliest Vaudeville

Read our Monthly Magazine

And support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

Trump was in his element delivering the annual “state of the union” address. Despite some relatively high notes of rhetoric, presumably written by his speechwriters, celebrating America’s achievements in the 250th anniversary year of its establishment, as well as some genuinely moving moments, most of his speech was classic Trump, at his populist worst.

Acting the showman, Trump wheeled out a series of boasts about his alleged greatest hits, delivered cheap applause lines designed to hearten his base and rile his opponents, and repeatedly tried to bask in the glow of other people’s accomplishments, to cover up the gaps at the heart of his own Presidency. 

It was pure theatre, of the tawdriest kind. Like the ringmaster of a travelling circus, he rolled out a series of acts designed to wow his audience – the two grizzled 100 year old military veterans, the war-wounded pilot (who completed his mission to capture Venezuela’s former President Maduro despite receiving life threatening injuries), the heroic Coast Guard swimmer (who rescued hundreds of children from perilous floodwaters in Texas last year), the triumphant US men’s hockey team, brandishing their Olympic Gold Medals to cheers of “USA, USA” around the Capitol building. 

To prolong the patriotic cheers, Trump used the occasion to dole out military awards and civilian honours like candy to many of those he singled out for recognition. Even though most of the awards were merited, it felt inappropriate to make such a political spectacle of the recipients’ genuine heroism and sacrifice. The pilot involved in the Venezuela raid looked distinctly ill-at-ease as his award was announced, perhaps because he knew his actions were being exploited for naked political purposes. It also seemed jarring to award the US hockey team goalkeeper the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as if his role in securing the US’s victory over Canada in the Olympic final was equivalent to the wartime actions of a military hero. 

EXCLUSIVE

Reform’s Plans to Import Trump’s Authoritarian ‘Project 2025’ Blueprint to the UK

Far from defending British independence, Reform and its by-election candidate Matt Goodwin are taking blueprints – and cash – from a global network of American hardliners

Nafeez Ahmed

At times, the speech became nakedly exploitative, as when Trump dwelt lavishly on the pain and suffering of others – the grieving widow (Erika Kirk), the anguished mother of a Ukrainian refugee, stabbed to death on a train (whose killing Trump inaccurately blamed on an illegal immigrant), the heartbroken parents of a National Guard officer killed in Washington DC last summer, the mother of a murdered high school cheerleader.  The TV cameras recording the event obligingly lingered on the grief-stricken faces of each of those he mentioned in turn, for heightened emotion. 

At times, it was only one bearded lady short of a full-on freak show. No-one’s trauma was too serious to be spared mention: the six-year-old girl hit by a tractor trailer, learning to walk again; the expectant mother who achieved pregnancy through IVF; the recovered bodies of the dead Israeli hostages. A particular low point came when Trump highlighted the case of Sage Blair, a young woman whose high school allegedly encouraged her to gender transition as a teenager without informing her parents, to attack all transgender kids, an acutely vulnerable minority, and Democrats allegedly backing gender transition without any safeguards in place: “Nobody stands up, these people are crazy. I’m telling them they’re crazy.” 

He repeatedly tried to goad the Democrats into over-reacting, while challenging them to back some of his more populist initiatives, particularly on tackling illegal immigration, fully funding the Department of Homeland Security (which includes ICE), ending so-called Sanctuary Cities, and requiring voters to show ID at elections. In a reprise of his campaign-winning ad in the 2024 Presidential election (“Kamala is for they/them, Donald Trump is for you”)  he taunted them for not standing up when he declared “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens….Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

The whole speech was Chicago-style razzle-dazzle, at times offensive, at times entertaining, but largely devoid of serious substance.  Most of it seemed designed to cover up the reality, which is that most Americans are tiring of his shtick, disapprove of his handling of immigration and the economy, and are steadily losing faith in his leadership. 

Nevertheless, buried in the speech were a few revealing nuggets:

Trump knows he’s failing on the economy – which is precisely why he felt the need to dismiss the criticisms, and over-egg his alleged economic successes: 

“Now, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability, a word, they just used it because somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem. They knew their statements were a lie, they knew it, they knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices. Our policies are rapidly ending them. We are doing really well. Those prices are plummeting downward. The price of eggs is down 60%, Madam Secretary, thank you. The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot. And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly. Just hold on a little while. We’ll get that down. And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.”

EXCLUSIVE

Exclusive Poll: Anti-Reform Tactical Voters Poised to Defeat Nigel Farage’s Party in Gorton and Denton By-election

Greens and Labour are in an effective dead heat against Reform UK, with tactical voters leaning towards Zack Polanski’s party

Adam Bienkov

He knows he’s suffered a setback on tariffs, which is why he refrained from repeating his full-on rant last week against the Supreme Court for its ruling that his tariffs were unconstitutional, but he is not yet willing to back down completely:

 “So, despite the disappointing ruling…..[the tariffs] will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes. And they have been tested for a long time. They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better — leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before. Congressional action will not be necessary.”

His foreign policy is still a values-free proposition, for example, drawing no distinction between Russia as the aggressor, and Ukraine, as the victim, in the largest landwar in Europe since World War, and to view NATO as an alliance based largely on dollars and cents, not values 

“NATO countries, our friends and allies — they are, they’re our friends and they’re our allies — have just agreed, at my very strong request, to pay 5% of GDP for military defense rather than the 2%, which they weren’t paying, we were paying for almost all of that. …..And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full. They pay us totally in full.”

While celebrating the release of Israeli hostages, he made no mention of the plight of the Palestinians. He seems unbothered by the ongoing slaughter in Sudan, or suffering of peoples in other other troubled hotspots of the world. 

He has no intention of trying to restore democracy in Venezuela, but is happy to keep working with the current administration, so long as the US can get their oil.

 “This was an absolutely a colossal victory for the security of the United States. A bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela. We’re working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez, to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly.” “We just received from our new friend and partner, Venezuela, more than 80 million barrels of oil.”

He had not made his mind up on Iran – alternately boasting that the US had wiped out Iran’s nuclear program in its attacks last year, but also hinting that he might still take more military action against the regime.  

“As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must. That’s why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran’s nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer. For decades, it has been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. …We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words, “We will never have a nuclear weapon.” My preference, my preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon. ”

Judging from the lavishg praise Trump heaped on his Secretary of State from the podium, Marco Rubio is Trump’s current favorite to succeed him: “Thank you. Thank. People like you. You know, Marco got 100% of the votes when he was in confirmation — I think our next one was about 54%. And some of the Democrats are now saying, I can’t believe we approved that guy. And he said, it’s an honor that they feel that way. Right, Marco? You have done a great job, great Secretary of state. I think he’ll go down as the best ever.”

He’s still peeved not to have won the Nobel Peace Prize – reminding the audience of all the wars he claims to have ended – and hungry for more awards and recognition,  joking at one point that he wished he could give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, congratulating himself for securing the 2026 FIFA World Cup in America, and the 2028 summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and joking that he even wished he could take credit for the 250th anniversary of the founding of America. These are the signs of an insecure man.

For all his claims of winning “ Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it.” Trump knows his popularity is fading and his time is running out. 

Nevertheless, spare a thought for those of us who sat through the longest State of the Union speech ever, and know we still have three more years of this to endure.