February 24, 2026
That was a long one.
President Trump just broke the record for the longest state of the union address in history. He talked for 1-hour and about 48 minutes.
So what did he talk about? Well – he said things like this…
I’m going to get to the political outbursts in a second — but before I get there you should also know about the substance of the speech. Of course Trump ran down a laundry list of all the things he sees as success…but he also announced something new… Trump says he is going to try and get big tech companies to pay for and produce their own electricity for their massive AI data centers that most people believe are driving up their power costs. Now they haven’t agreed to that yet – but he said he’s going to try. He also announced that next year he is going to somehow allow average Americans to have access same retirement offered to every federal worker and the government will match with $1000 contribution each year. Of course like all presidents he demanded some of his key priorities get passed by congress. He demanded that the senate pass the Save America act – which would require proof of citizenship before being allowed to vote – he wants congress to codify his tariffs in to law. He wants them to codify his prescription drug program into law. He wants congress to pass his health care plan into law. And he wants congress to pass a bill that would prohibit big corporations from buying up single family homes and a law that would prohibit lawmakers from profiting from stocks based on their insider knowledge.
And while the vast majority of the nearly 100 standing ovations trump got were from only republicans – that idea of banning insider trading also got a standing ovation from democrats. And that wasn’t the only time – I counted about a dozen times during trump’s speech that democrats *did* stand and applaud for example – for the military members that trump awarded the purple heart to or the congressional medal of honor to.
Now this standing ovation thing is always part of the state of the union political show. The president’s party always gives him standing ovations for almost every line he delivers. And the minority party rarely does. That’s not uncommon. But– it appeared that president trump started to get more and more aggravated that democrats weren’t applauding him…you could start to see it on his face.
And that finally led to this back and forth between the president and the representatives from Minnesota and Michigan over sanctuary cities.
The bottom line here is speech is probably going to be President Trump’s biggest audience and his biggest opportunity to get in front of the American people before the midterm election. So did he deliver a message that will allow republicans to keep the house and senate after November? That’s for you to decide.
Watch the State of the Union here.
