On February 24, 2026, President Donald Trump gave the annual State of the Union (SotU) address to a joint session of Congress. The speech covered a broad range of topics, from immigration to drug enforcement to Venezuela to the Olympics, running for a record one hour and 47 minutes (or 48 minutes, depending on how much of the fanfare on either side is counted).
From the moment Trump walked into the Capitol room, the atmosphere was somewhat confrontational. While many attendees, particularly Republican lawmakers, were quite literally climbing over one another to speak with or shake Trump’s hand, Representative Al Green (D-Texas) unveiled a sign that read “Black People Aren’t Apes”, holding it behind Trump for the cameras to see. Green would be escorted out several minutes later by the House Sergeant-at-Arms while the crowd chanted “USA! USA!”, his second consecutive SotU speech where he was ejected partway through. Trump also barely addressed the four members of the Supreme Court who attended, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney-Barrett. In particular, from the PBS camera angle, he appeared to entirely walk by Coney-Barrett even when she addressed him, likely believed to be a reaction to her breaking with him in the tariff ruling despite him nominating her. Additionally, when introducing vice president JD Vance and first and second ladies Melania Trump and Usha Vance, the two women each received some amount of polite applause, but there was no audible response at all to Vance’s introduction.
The speech opened with a series of claims and promises about the current state of the economy that have been highly challenged by experts – for instance, Trump claimed to have inherited a stagnant economy and revitalized it, despite the fact that gross domestic product (GDP) grew 2.8% in 2024 but only 2.2% in 2025 during Trump’s first year. He also painted a picture of an American economic golden age that had been restarted, and would later claim that the tariffs recently struck down were responsible, promising to reinstate them under different authority. Other claims made include that incomes had sharply grown, despite the fact that they only grew 0.9% (after tax, relative to inflation) in 2025, down from 2.2% in 2024 and the lowest growth since 2022. Additionally, it’s unclear where Trump is getting the claim of $18 trillion in investments from, especially because the White House’s own numbers only had $9.7 trillion in investments from international investors, and the Peterson Institute estimated it at $5 trillion. He also touted false claims about gas prices (which are lower than this time last year, but not by as much as he claimed), and again said that drug prices would be reduced by more than 100% (which is not possible) though did accurately bring up record share prices on the Dow Jones and S&P investment indexes.
The US Men’s Hockey team, who recently won gold at the Olympics in Milan, entered to fanfare from the audience, following a highly criticized phone call to the team after their win during which FBI director Kash Patel appeared to be partying in the locker room that invited them to the SotU. The invitation was also extended to the US Women’s Hockey team, who declined; Trump stated during the speech that they “will soon be coming to the White House” for a celebration as well, though, as of writing this, women’s captain Hilary Knight has expressed doubt that the team will attend. Five of the men’s team did skip the SotU, and it does not appear that there has been a public statement about why.
However, this celebration did start another unusual pattern, involving government awards being presented. Trump announced that he would be soon presenting the Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to goaltender Connor Hellebuyck, which he said was something the entire team had voted and agreed on. That particular award was not presented to Hellebuyck during the SotU itself, but several military awards were handed out; while it is normal practice to recognize military officials during the speech, handing out medals is highly irregular. A total of four honors were handed out, including two Congressional Medals of Honor, the nation’s highest military honor, with one being given to Korean war veteran E. Royce Williams for a dogfighting maneuver, and the other being given to Eric Slover, a helicopter pilot shot during the capture of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro. Most criticism of Williams receiving the Medal center around whether or not it is appropriate to be handing out military honors during the SotU, though the backlash against Slover receiving it has been more substantial, including that this honor bypassed most checks and processes put in place to ensure the honor was handed out to people truly deserving of it, and many questioning if it is even appropriate to honor someone for kidnapping a foreign president in this way. Trump indicated that at least 10 other members of this operation will be honored at a later date.
Notably, throughout the speech, Trump spoke relatively little about immigration, given the importance it played in his election. He touted that no illegal immigrants have been admitted across the border during his term (a claim later undercut by his own admission that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is currently non-operational due to a funding shutdown). While this claim is questionable, it does appear that the number of attempted crossings is at its lowest since the 1960’s, with only about 6,000 arrests in January of this year. Trump also claimed that his immigration enforcement included less fentanyl crossing the border, despite the fact the fentanyl seizures actually have dropped during his presidency. It’s unclear if this drop is due to poor enforcement or due to simply less travelling across the border. Trump stated that immigrants who “love our country” and arrive legally would be allowed to stay, though has taken steps to restrict legal immigration. Later in the speech, Trump would again tout debunked claims that illegal immigrants are committing voter fraud.
However, as someone who watched this live, the moment that stood out most to me was when Trump discussed what the role of the American lawmaker was. At one point, Trump asked that, if you were a present lawmaker who agreed the primary responsibility was to the American citizen (while explicitly excluding non-citizen residents), stand up. Most Democratic lawmakers present stay seated, with some later confirming their decision was based on support for the American people, while the present Republican lawmakers stood. Trump said that the seated lawmakers should be ashamed, and called for public officials who blocked the removal of illegal aliens to be criminally charged; it is unclear if he was calling for the arrest of the seated lawmakers.
Several Democratic responses to the SotU were given, showcasing a variety of perspectives but a disjointed coalition. MeidasTouch and MoveOn co-hosted a series of speakers in an event called “The People’s State of the Union”, while Defiance.org hosted a different slate of speakers in a counter protest called “State of the Swamp”. Governor Abigail Spanberger (D-Virginia) gave the official response for the Democratic party, in a speech that highlighted affordability.
In terms of overall response to the SotU, there is, bluntly, data to support any interpretation that someone could hope to draw. Approval of the speech among those who watched it was quite high, at around 63-64% (depending on the poll), though Republicans watched it at much higher rates than Democrats and independents, leading some to question the bias of this survey. The “very positive” viewership, however, was only at 38%, which is the lowest of any SotU speech this century, with 36% reacting negatively – a gap that is likely not meaningful in a survey with a 2.5% estimated margin of error. However, the number of people who believed his policies were headed in the right direction also increased among speech watchers, going from 54% before to 64% after, indicating that this did at least have some positive impacts. It is unclear what the actual, practical implications of this speech will be.