SOTU Was Heavy on Spectacle, Light on Truth
A record-length address leaned on stagecraft, selective math, and constitutional defiance.
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SUMMARY
Last night, Trump delivered what multiple outlets including AP, PBS, and NPR reported as the longest State of the Union address on record and delivered, notably, during an active partial government shutdown. The speech was built around patriotic staging (the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team), chamber confrontations (Rep. Al Green was escorted out after unfurling a protest sign), and a string of economic claims that fact-checkers from NPR, AP, ABC News, and NBC flagged within minutes. The most consequential moment was the President openly signaling he intends to keep imposing tariffs despite the Supreme Court striking down his claimed authority under IEEPA and that he views Congress as optional in the process.
The partial shutdown
The Department of Homeland Security has been partially shut down since February 14th. Over the weekend, DHS said it would suspend both TSA PreCheck and Global Entry during the funding lapse, then reversed the PreCheck closure while keeping Global Entry halted. The scope of service disruptions has been a moving target as agencies scramble to adjust, but the reality is that federal workers are going without full paychecks, and the department responsible for border security, airport screening, disaster response, and the Coast Guard is operating without appropriated funding.
That’s happening in the background as the President walked into the House chamber to tell the country things are going great and that America is great again.
Federal News Network’s Capitol Hill correspondent described it as the only State of the Union address ever delivered while part of the government was actually shut down.
Rep. Al Green was removed, again
Within minutes of the President entering the chamber, Rep. Al Green of Texas stood and held up a sign that read “Black People Aren’t Apes.” He was escorted out by the Sergeant at Arms. NBC News, Axios, the Washington Post, and TIME all reported it was the second consecutive year Green had been removed during a Trump address to Congress.
The sign, as the Washington Post and NBC reported, was a direct response to a video Trump shared on social media earlier this month that depicted former President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama as apes. Trump later deleted the video but has not apologized for posting it.
The physical confrontations in the chamber were widely reported. Axios reported that Sen. Markwayne Mullin attempted to grab the sign from Green’s hands and that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise also tried to pull it down. NBC confirmed that Rep. Troy Nehls tried to snatch the sign as Green was being escorted toward the door. TIME reported that Green shouted toward the lectern while Republicans jeered, with some attempting unsuccessfully to take the sign.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had specifically asked Democratic members not to bring signs and to maintain decorum.
The fact that a statement of basic human dignity, that Black people are not apes, required an act of defiance to say out loud in the United States Capitol in 2026, and that the response from multiple elected officials was to physically try to silence it, says something about the condition of this country that no economic data point or policy argument can capture.
The hockey team was an emotional centerpiece
The biggest sustained applause of the night came when Trump welcomed the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team into the chamber. The team won gold in Milan on Sunday, defeating Canada 2-1 in overtime, the first American men’s hockey gold in 46 years, as CBS News and NBC reported. Both sides of the aisle stood. “USA” chants broke out.
Trump then announced he would award goaltender Connor Hellebuyck the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Medal of Freedom is the nation’s highest civilian honor, and while it has been awarded to athletes and entertainers before, it has more commonly recognized broader lifetime contributions to public life, science, or the arts… recipients like Rosa Parks, John Lewis, and Jonas Salk. Awarding it to a 32-year-old goaltender days after a single (extraordinary) game represents an unusually fast escalation of the honor.
The U.S. women’s hockey team also won gold, also beating Canada in overtime. They were also invited. They declined, citing scheduling conflicts. Trump noted they would visit the White House later. But the staging choice… men’s team in the chamber as a centerpiece visual, women’s team absent, landed differently than intended, especially after Trump’s earlier phone call with the men’s team in which he joked that he would “be impeached” if he didn’t also invite the women.
The hockey moment reveals the architecture of the entire evening. Lead with patriotic spectacle that nobody can object to. Generate bipartisan imagery. Then use that emotional goodwill as a runway for everything that follows… the inflated claims, the grievance, the constitutional defiance.
Economic claims were the core of his speech and the weakest part
Gas prices. Trump claimed gas is below $2.30 a gallon in most states and referenced sub-$2 prices. NPR’s annotated fact-check noted those figures represent only the cheapest stations nationally, not a representative average. The AAA national average was $2.92 per gallon, and no state average was below $2.37, per AAA data.
Egg prices. Trump said egg prices are down 60 percent. NBC News’s fact-check, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, reported the actual decline from January 2025 to January 2026 was closer to 48 percent… a real reduction, but not the figure the President stated.
Inflation framing. Trump presented the economy as though he inherited record-level inflation. ABC News’s fact-check noted inflation peaked at 9.1 percent in June 2022, declined steadily, and was at 3 percent when Trump returned to office. It has since come down to 2.4 percent. But ABC also documented that tariffs have driven up the cost of fresh produce, beef, and coffee with ground coffee prices up 34 percent year-over-year and energy costs up 6.3 percent from January 2025 to January 2026, per Bureau of Labor Statistics data cited in ABC’s reporting. Inflation cooling is not the same thing as prices dropping, and most families know, and feel, the difference.
Tax cuts. Trump described last year’s tax legislation as the largest in American history. NPR’s fact-check, citing analysis from the Tax Foundation, classified it as the sixth-largest. NPR also reported that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found the bulk of the savings go to higher-income households, with middle-income families seeing roughly $500 to $1,000 per year.
Construction jobs. Trump claimed 70,000 construction jobs were added. NBC’s fact-check, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, reported the actual figure was 44,000.
Border crossings. Trump said that in the past nine months, “zero illegal aliens” have been admitted to the United States. ABC News called this false, noting that while crossings dropped dramatically from over 1.5 million encounters in 2024 to just under 28,000 in 2025, they have never reached zero.
The most constitutionally significant passage, the tariffs.
Days before the address, the Supreme Court struck down the President’s broad tariff authority in one of the most consequential executive power rulings in years. CNBC and CNN both reported Trump’s response from the chamber. He called the ruling “unfortunate” and vowed to pursue “alternative” legal authorities to continue imposing tariffs without congressional approval.
He also repeated the claim that tariffs are paid by foreign countries. The evidence points the other way, costs are borne primarily by American importers and, ultimately, consumers.
Trump called Democrats “crazy” again
Trump accused Democrats of being responsible for the DHS shutdown and of endangering Americans. CNN reported that when Democrats remained seated after he asked lawmakers to stand if they agreed the government’s first duty is to protect citizens, he told them they “should be ashamed.” Rep. Ilhan Omar responded by repeatedly shouting that the President “has killed Americans,” a reference to the deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good during federal immigration enforcement operations in Minnesota.
Trump called Democrats “crazy,” accused them of only winning elections “by cheating”, claims for which there is no evidence, and said that his current term “should be my third term, but strange things happen,”.
Millions of Democrats boycotted the speech. Some attended the alternative “People’s State of the Union” on the National Mall or the State of the Swamp.
The Republican side of the room
The standing ovations were not forced. Republican lawmakers physically tried to grab and pull a protest sign out of a colleague’s hands. Cabinet members stood and clapped when the President called the opposition “crazy.” For the vast majority of Republicans in that room, this appears to be the party they want, the leader they chose, and the policies they support.
Epstein survivors were in the gallery
More than a dozen survivors of Jeffrey Epstein attended the address as guests of Democratic lawmakers, according to NBC News and TIME. Family members of the late Virginia Roberts Giuffre were among them, invited by Reps. Suhas Subramanyam and Jamie Raskin. Their presence was a visible demand for full transparency in the Epstein files case.
Despite the passage of the Epstein Transparency Act, lawmakers from both parties have criticized the Department of Justice for what they describe as delays and heavy redactions in the document releases. The survivors were there to ensure that the rest of us noticed what the speech left out and as long as the transparency fight remains unresolved, it will remain a political liability for this administration.
What Does This Mean For November?
State of the Union viewership has been declining for decades, from nearly 67 million viewers for Clinton’s first address in 1993 to roughly 32 million for Biden’s in 2024. In an era of constant presidential visibility on social media, the SOTU is no longer a rare chance for the President to address the nation, it is just one of thousands.
There is also a credible argument that voter sentiment for midterm elections solidifies earlier than most people assume, not the month before Election Day, but around the holiday season, when people are traveling, shopping, and feeling the economy in their daily lives. If that model holds, then the events of November through January already shaped the midterm landscape: the fatal ICE enforcement killings in Minneapolis, the tariff fallout and $12 billion farm bailout, the Greenland standoff, the Epstein file fight, the shutdowns. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll released Sunday put the President’s disapproval at 60 percent, a high for his second term. A speech, no matter how long, can’t undo months of accumulated decline.
What you can do today
Share the fact-checks from NPR, AP, and NBC.
Ask what your members of Congress are doing about the DHS shutdown and tariff oversight.
The No Kings protests are coming in March. Find events near you at nokings.org or through Mobilize.
What are you doing between now and the No Kings protests in March? Organizing, canvassing, post-carding, sharing?
SAVE THE DATE: MARCH 28 2026
If you missed the announcement: ANNOUNCEMENT: The Next NO KINGS Mobilization. If you’re organizing locally: How to Organize a Protest.
Epstein survivors sat in the gallery and watched a two-hour speech that never mentioned them. What does it tell you that the biggest silence in the room wasn't from the Democrats, it was from the President? Have you looked at any of the files that have been released yet?
I watched #TheStateOfTheSwamp because I knew it would be more satisfying than continually hitting my head against the wall with excessive applause.
I loved the range of guests, the passion, the frogs, and the overwhelming sense of hope shared by every speaker.
Because a post-Trump world is coming. That was felt on the stage and in the hall. We need to make the entire nation see that the might of our tens of millions will prevail. And the winds in our sails are strong and steady enough to make the necessary changes ahead of schedule.
Our voices can trigger a #BlueHouseOversightRampage EARLY - perhaps in just weeks - if we can convince JUST TWO HOUSE REPUBLICANS to declare as independent, standing as true patriots by caucusing with Dems to end this shift away from democracy towards kleptocratic #RepubloFascism.
We heard a lot of fear for what Trump might do to try to steal the midterms tonight on the SOTS. So why not take that whole process out of play? If we reach our goal with this strategy, the #ImmediateFlipMovement, we can make ALL THEIR ELECTION THEFT IDEAS MOOT. With all that Dems quickly uncover, nothing will stop the blue tsunami on the horizon in November.
In this Daily Kos post I go over how to lower the barriers to making this happen, including encouraging politicians to rebrand as #ConstitutionalConservatives to differentiate from GOP 1.0 and striking a deal with DNC Chair Ken Martin to ensure that this defection isn’t political suicide.
We need Martin to promise NOT to fund or back a candidate against any of these new allies as long as they remain independent and caucusing with Dems into 2027.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2026/2/22/2369827/-Let-s-Recruit-2-House-Republican-Defectors-to-FlipTheHouseEARLY-and-Pass-ForThePeopleAct2
My post digs deep into how the previously unthinkable could now be possible. In it I’ve included a link to a previous Substack piece focusing on three MN reps, including three-part meme sets there to put into the X feeds of these Republicans and scripts for calls to their offices.
I ask also that you consider harnessing the collective might of the #50501Movement towards exerting this pressure in a unique way, framing this as asking - as progressives - for these potential defectors to BE OUR HEROES.
Mine is a tiny voice in all this, largely unnoticed. Yours, in championing a similar approach, could be monumentally world-changing. Please know that if you like what I’m proposing, I can recreate 200 more meme sets for potential defectors if called to do so.
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky could very well be the first domino to fall, frustrated as he is by the continued defiance of the Epstein Files Transparency Act that he helped create.
Thank you for considering what I propose now. Imagine having flipped the House by #NoKings3! By then Dems could have established the #SeditiousConspiracy to undermine our democracy with the smoking gun being the blanket firings of inspectors generals throughout government. That act proves the intent to breach laws, the separation of powers, and the guardrails that a benevolent and functioning government would stay within.
And by spring maybe impeachments and resignations will fly like confetti over a future #2ndIndependenceDay parade. We don’t know the annual date yet to be celebrated, but I hope that the choice is obvious in the next few months as a pivot point is reached where our triumph feels certain throughout a grateful and relieved nation.
I am post carding and will continue to do so.