WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his administration’s increasingly unpopular policies in the longest State of the Union address ever delivered to Congress, saying the United States is “very much winning.”
President Trump’s speech, which lasted a record 1 hour and 47 minutes, boasted that the economy is “stronger than ever” and suggested that the United States now has “the strongest and most secure borders in American history.”
On the international front, President Trump has repeatedly warned Iran about nuclear weapons, but the president also gave lawmakers speculation about what might happen if U.S.-Iran negotiations break down.
Democrats, meanwhile, said President Trump’s past year had been a “complete disaster,” and Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger said the Democratic Party’s response “failed to offer any real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges.”
Despite the length of Trump’s speech, he also avoided thorny topics such as the Minnesota protests and the Epstein file.
President Trump began his speech by painting an optimistic picture, declaring that America is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.”
“Tonight, just one year later, we can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved change and a transformation unlike anything anyone has ever seen before,” President Trump said.
President Trump has insisted that Iran wants missiles that can reach the United States and reiterated that Iran will never be allowed to build nuclear weapons.
He said Iranians “are at this very moment once again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions.”
“My hope is to resolve this issue through diplomacy,” Trump said.
“But one thing is for sure: I will never allow the world’s biggest sponsors of terrorism to acquire nuclear weapons,” he added.
The president also detailed last summer’s U.S. airstrikes that attacked Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, praised the airstrikes that ousted Maduro in Venezuela and his administration’s efforts to broker a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
Trump also sought to appeal to bipartisan patriotic sentiment by introducing a series of surprise guests, including a U.S. military hero, a former political prisoner released after the overthrow of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro, and the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team.
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He later announced that the country’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, would be awarded to the hockey team’s goalie.
He also handed out the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration, to a helicopter pilot and a 100-year Korean War veteran injured in January’s attack to topple Maduro.
Trump also supported the president’s efforts to keep in place recent immigration crackdowns and broad tariffs that were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last week.
President Trump’s speech drew applause from Democrats only for calling the high court’s overturning of his policies a “disappointing ruling” and insisting that “everything was going well” before the ruling was handed down.
The president vowed to use “alternative” legislation to tax imports, telling lawmakers that “no action by Congress is needed.” He also declared that one day tariffs would “effectively replace” the modern income tax system.
President Trump has claimed that foreign countries are paying for the tariffs, despite evidence that the costs are being borne by American consumers and businesses. “It’s saving our country,” he added.
The US president responded to the Democratic Party, which often heckled him during his speech, saying, “They should be ashamed.”
He then pointed at Democrats and declared, “These people are crazy.” “Democrats are destroying our country,” he said.
Democratic Rep. Al Green was escorted from the chamber after unfurling a protest placard that read “Black people are not monkeys.”
The sign appears to be a reference to a video posted by the US president in which former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are depicted as primates in a jungle. Greene was also left out of President Trump’s speech last year. — Agency
