State of the Union Address | America First Ep. 1646
Nicholas Fuentes critiques the State of the Union, calling it a "shilling" session with no real achievements—2% GDP growth, $150B tariff refunds, and unfulfilled promises like mass deportations. He blames bureaucracy for delays, mocks Trump’s leadership as reckless (e.g., ignoring IEEPA warnings), and contrasts it with Democratic failures on inflation and border security. The episode ends with Fuentes dismissing unity efforts, doubling down on divisive rhetoric, and vowing "America First" content over globalism, reinforcing his combative, conspiracy-driven worldview. [Automatically generated summary]
People that are scrambling, trying to protect their ever-shrinking share of what they have are foolish.
It's all going.
It's all going away.
This country is being ripped apart and raped and looted.
We're being slowly poisoned and in some cases quickly murdered and assassinated.
And we're killing ourselves every day.
Inadvertently, with the kinds of things that we eat and breathe and drink and see.
People have got to start to radically begin to obey their conscience and tell the truth and do the right thing.
People have got to start to get courageous.
And this is the time for everybody to turn and look to God and to pray and to ask for strength and to ask for wisdom to get through this time and to transform and sanctify this country.
And the alternative is that there will be no country.
Is it really only as big as low gas prices?
Is it really only so big as bringing inflation and gas prices and the corporate tax rate back down?
It's not about waiting for someone to come in and change the policy and make it better.
It's a personal decision that we all have to make to become soldiers of Christ.
Would you look at the time?
Would you look at the time?
The broken block is right again.
Would you look at the time?
Print your apology form.
I told you so.
unidentified
When I get home, I want you.
Hello, I got places to be Good evening everybody You're watching America First.
No one's allowed to say that the blood is a quintessential part of this, that the blood of our people is something that is essential.
That we are different.
that america was different because we are different palantir is an ai data analytics company
They use artificial intelligence to look at vast amounts of data and create insights.
If the government has an amount of data which is kind of unimaginable, if you've got every phone call, every email, every transaction, every photograph of a license plate on the highway, satellite data, it's too much data for a bureaucracy to sift through.
Palantir comes in and interprets the data using algorithms, using artificial intelligence, using software to make vast amounts of data usable.
That's what they are.
And so many of the people that worked with Elon that came into the government through Doge worked with Palantir.
Now that Doge is finished, Palantir seems to be just getting started.
Thank you so much, everybody.
Can I just say, are you trusting me?
unidentified
Yes.
I'm party.
Seems to my eyes all day.
I want nothing, but I'm running out of patience.
You tell me I can shut it in the face.
When I get home, I want you.
Hello, I got places to be Good evening, everybody You're watching America First.
My name is Nicholas J. Quentin.
Have a great show for you tonight.
You got that back, that's a dunno bump.
You got that back, that's a bump.
You got that back, that's a like a bunch of fun.
Are you winning, son?
You're a boy that I'm hot.
There's someone that you're unto.
It broke somebody's.
But you're fluffin' all over, cause I'm you should I'm on to.
Very excited to be back here with you tonight on Wednesday.
We have a lot to talk about tonight.
lots to get into.
Big show.
The Jews.
And who's going to deliver it?
JD Vance?
If they revealed birthright citizenship, his wife wouldn't be a citizen anymore.
unidentified
I've known no other country.
This is my home.
America first is inevitable.
Trusting Atmosphere00:06:50
unidentified
It's unstoppable.
And the reason why is because it's not good to shift to big businesses.
It's not good to shift for Israel.
It's not it's heading.
How you put your muscle favor on your side.
And said to me, I reply.
Try to look at me, but not just bad.
I'm a bad, that's all God.
Like I'm credits in the dark.
And I'm on my buttons like the phone of yard.
You can simply get your finger on a beat.
Went from one and four to one and three.
Thirty people in the cattle and it just be a new commander and a chief.
Definitely I fear and never when you can move the fear above God you create fear above everything else You're talking to somebody right now that only fears God victory, bro This is a Christian nation.
If we don't have freedom on the Internet in the age of AI, we are going to be mind raped every day forever.
Think about anything you've ever said or done in the vicinity of your phone's camera or microphone, everything you've ever put into your phone, and even things that are not necessarily so scandalous, but even things like your favorite restaurants, your geolocation, because your phone also has a GPS.
They know where you are at all times.
They know where you go and when.
They know what you buy.
They have access to your bank account.
AI will literally know everything about you.
Everyone you know, your relationship to them, your tastes, your preferences, your habits, your whereabouts, your routines, your schedule, when you asleep.
They know how much REM sleep you're getting.
They know your resting heart rate.
They know how many calories you consume.
Think about the ways that they can manipulate you.
You have a computer in your refrigerator, computer in your car, computer in your home security system, computer in your everything, computer in your clothes, your watch, your glasses, your VR headset, your alarm clock.
You have a smart home, economy of things.
It's like total, like, rape of everybody by the system forever.
My life is like a first-person video game, you know?
I want that shot of myself onto a job that I have.
My voice says nothing when I scream off our head.
I stretch my hand on my car just cause I know When I get home,
I want you Hello, I got places to be watching America First, my name is Nicholas Jay Fuentes.
We have a great show for you tonight, that's a like a bump, you got that back, that's a like a bump, you got that back, it's a kind of bumpin' deal, you got that hat back, that's a like a bump, you got that hat bump, that's a like a bump,
It's a kind of bump.
They believed a lion could be brought to heal.
They have total control That a lion could, from his courage, be pride Over every single thing, that the lion himself would learn to kneel.
They pull the strings that a lion would not care, even if his lion died.
Things have to change that the lion himself would accept such a deal And they have to change right now.
In the end It was only to themselves they had lied.
Can you imagine this, a three-hour Trump speech in 2026?
What could possibly fill three hours of good news about the administration?
I don't know how they're going to do it.
I don't know how they're going to fill up the time.
But that's going to be our show.
we're going to get locked in here in just a moment.
Like I said, the speech is scheduled to start at eight o'clock central.
So that's in just under a half hour.
So we're going to start watching that very soon.
But it's going to be a lot of fun.
I'll be here.
We're going to experience it together.
We're going to enjoy all of this, suffer through it together.
I'll be buckled up, strapped in for the whole thing.
And I'm really looking forward to it.
Before we get into it, though, before we start the live coverage, I do just want to remind you to smash the follow button on, rumble, smash the like button, leave a comment, let me know what you think about the show.
Remember to check out our merch store, Fuentes.store.
Get your America First hats, sweatshirts, t-shirts, flags, all that stuff.
Fuentes.store.
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That's like our entry-level thing.
You get access to the entire archive every episode of the show, all the stuff.
$100 a month.
You get access to the group chat with me.
And that's at AmericaFirst.plus.
Okay, with that out of the way, we're going to move on here.
We're going to get it going.
I'm going to get my headset in, and we're going to tune in live.
And I think tonight we're going to be watching the C-SPAN live stream.
You know what's funny?
They really gave us the blues.
Two years ago, we live streamed the RNC during the election.
And these guys got on our ass for like a year about copyright or intellectual property, whatever.
So we're going to, I think we're going to try C-SPAN.
I think it's fine because it's a government speech.
So I don't think they own the rights to it.
But we're going to switch over now.
We're going to get set up and we'll start our live coverage.
And they're saying, like I said, it's going to be two, three hours tonight.
That would make it the longest State of the Union speech in history.
And I got to be honest, the entire point of the State of the Union address is to shill the administration, as you know.
It is to shill all of the good news, talking points.
It's effectively a stump speech.
That's what it is.
I just don't know how you fill up two to three hours with things the administration is doing.
Of course, Trump will do it, and it'll be a lot of fluff.
And we'll try to fact check it as much as possible in real time.
But from where I'm sitting, I look at the RNC party platform from two years ago.
I look at the Trump campaign promises.
There's really nothing there.
There's not a lot to show for it after just a year.
And this is going to be a very important speech tonight because we are headed into the midterms in just about eight months, just a little bit over eight months, actually.
And as you know, the Democrats are projected to take over the House, maybe even the Senate.
Not likely they'll take the Senate, but it's actually becoming increasingly likely that they'll win the House.
If you look at the odds on polymarket, they're actually up.
They were at 83% for most of the year so far.
Now they're up to 85%.
So somehow, and that was already a pretty significant advantage.
That was a pretty significant lead.
It's actually going up.
So this is a pivotal moment in the Trump administration.
He's going to have to make the case getting into primary season, getting into the midterms about his record in the hopes that maybe he could get it back on track.
And that's twofold.
Either he can get his administration back on track, salvage the approval rating, regain some of the initiative for his agenda, try and finish strong here.
And you do that for its own purpose.
You do that.
There's a value in and of itself.
But the other reason, of course, is you then have to go out and make the case in the general election, in the midterms, so that you can salvage Congress.
And if you can't salvage Congress, then you have a really difficult time, as we've talked about on this show, actually for years now, in the final two years of his second term.
What's going to happen when the Democrats take the House, which is a certainty at this point, all but inevitable, is that you are going to have throughout 2027 and 2028, it's going to be subpoenas, depositions, investigations.
Surely there will be at least one impeachment.
I think there'll probably be multiple.
There will be articles of impeachment against not just Trump, but maybe other members of the cabinet too.
And that goes with the oversight power of the House.
Democrats take the House and they don't just create gridlock in the legislature and shut down any major legislation and things like that, but they also exercise the oversight power and that's going to be the real problem.
Convening subcommittees, subpoena, compelling the release of documents, forcing deposition, deposing government officials.
And with that oversight power, they then can get the evidence they need, get the paperwork for articles of impeachment.
And a lot of people don't realize, again, it's not just against Trump.
It could be against Vance, who's pictured here.
He's coming into the Capitol building.
It could be against Pete Hegseth, who had a major scandal last year around this time.
SignalGate could be against Christy Noam if she's still in the job.
There's a lot of corruption in Homeland Security over these border wall contracts not being widely reported.
A lot of corruption about a lot of the appropriations and the acquisitions processes in some of these bigger departments and agencies.
So you're staring down the barrel of the gun here.
It's not just about losing the House and you shut down the agenda.
It's also about shutting down the executive branch.
And then, of course, that is going to flood into 2028.
And it's going to affect that presidential primary, which will certainly start early in 2027 and then bleed into 28.
So it's really a lot is on the line here.
2026 is a pivotal year.
I am very pessimistic about the whole thing.
I think Trump has basically blown it.
And I think we're already out of time.
And you know that.
If you watch my show, if you tune in regularly, if you see the clips, you know my feelings on this.
I think we've already blown it.
It's already over.
We had really, realistically, really one year, maybe a year and a half at most.
You had January 20th until right about now, and maybe a few more months until the summer, which is when all the primaries are finished, right around July.
You have realistically until now, at the earliest, July at the latest, to get it together for that very reason.
I said it in 24.
I said it in 25.
If Trump gets in, he has to hit the ground running.
He needs a plan, needs to be organized.
He needs to know what he's doing.
Because if you don't have momentum going into 2026, if you don't have something to show for it, if you're figuring it out on the fly, if it is like it was in the first term, where you don't really have a solid agenda, where you don't know what you're doing, you're going to be caught with your pants around your ankles in 2026.
You're going to get utterly destroyed because the media, which is liberal and in the pocket of the Democrats, you're going to have them breathing down your neck.
You're going to have already you have the effect that the incumbent administration does poorly in the House and the midterms.
So you have these historic factors working against you.
And if you don't pull it out in the midterms, you're done.
You're just finished.
And if you couldn't get it done in the first year, you're definitely not going to get it done working uphill with a gridlock, with a divided government, with Democrats in the House, Republicans in the Senate.
It's not going to work.
So I said this a long time ago that you're going to know very early on whether the administration is going to succeed because you'll be able to tell in the first year if they did enough, if they have the stuff, if they have what it takes, if they have the right people, if they're doing the right things.
And if you don't have that, then forget it.
And that's exactly what took place.
Just like in the first term, they had all the wrong people.
They made all the wrong decisions.
And now here we are in February and we have really lost all the momentum.
And it's sort of interesting.
I've been saying this on the show a lot and I've been saying it even to my friends.
It's truly staggering when you think about where we were exactly a year ago.
Think about how much optimism there was for this administration in November of 2024.
Think about where you were on election night in 2024.
And think about those feelings, how excited everybody was, the exuberance.
And that was the mood.
It was exuberance.
Think about how you felt during the inauguration.
Think about when Elon Musk got up, I think at their victory rally and did the Roman salute, screaming and yelling, throwing his arms up.
Think about how you felt then about the prospects of this administration.
Think about how you feel now.
Okay.
A year ago, people were talking about building new cities and we were going to end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours and the mass deportations start on day one and it's going to be different this time.
The Epstein thing has become an albatross and it's a totally unforced error.
Nobody to blame but themselves.
They promised it.
They botched it, covered it up, didn't work.
Now it's dragging them down with all the young people.
The mass deportations, total capitulation in Minneapolis.
They're winding it down.
People argue with this, but the deportations are not what were promised and they're not where they need to be and they're just not sufficient.
Border wall hasn't even been started.
Not only do you have a war in Ukraine, you got a war in Iran.
In the middle of this first state of the union, we have half of our air power in the Middle East.
Another squadron of F-22 Raptors landed in the United Kingdom.
You know what F-22 Raptors are for?
They're for shooting down other planes.
They're for air superiority.
They are there to shoot down Iran's air force.
And that is something that might be discussed tonight.
More on that in a moment.
But all these hopes and optimism, ending all the wars, the no war president, peace president.
Well, not only are we not done in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians launched an attack on a missile factory in Russia just this week.
You got another war in Iran.
We're bombing them.
And so it's just, this is a sampling.
You've heard it at this point.
This is a sampling.
The economy's not even doing good.
Growth is at 2%.
It's good, not great.
You know, the job market's not great.
It's basically frozen.
It's no fire, but no hire.
Nobody's, you know, nobody's losing their jobs, not tons of massive layoffs.
It's acute in certain industries, software, things that are being affected by the new technology, but nobody's getting hired.
People are suffering from underemployment.
You got a lot of problems, a lot of really bad indicators.
You have delinquencies on car loans, delinquencies on mortgages going up.
Prices have stabilized, but they're still high.
And wage growth isn't good.
So a lot, lot, a lot of problems.
And we're a year in.
So I don't know what he's going to say tonight, but I imagine it's going to be an attempt at a reset.
To Trump's credit, I think there is some effort inside the administration at resetting.
At least that's the big idea.
And you can kind of see some evidence of this.
At the beginning of 2026, I think there was a recognition that things are not going the way they needed to be going.
They just looked at the numbers.
They looked at the approval.
They looked at the generic ballot polling.
They looked at the odds for the midterms.
And I know that they're thinking about making a change.
And so there's some things that are going out there.
They're talking about eliminating DEI for air traffic controllers and pilots, which is fine.
And they're talking about changing the food pyramid.
And they're doing Trump RX, the pharmaceutical pricing.
You know, so there's some effort, there's some initiative to get some new policies out there.
They're trying to get it going.
But I think what you've seen already two months in is they just cannot overcome.
Unfortunately, I think it's just too late.
And so they're just getting beaten back by the tide, which is too powerful, by the media, by the Democrats, by the courts, the Supreme Court, which just handed down the decision striking down the tariffs, by the personnel, which doesn't even know what they're doing.
And I think it's just a little too late.
And, you know, the reason that I'm so pessimistic about all of it and why I was pessimistic from the jump in 2024 is because we saw all of this happen back in the first term.
We saw this whole story play out, which is that Trump is disorganized, incompetent, hires all the wrong people.
And the intentions are there.
I mean, I think the intentions are right.
Like he instinctually, he's pro-protection in terms of tariffs.
He's anti-war.
He's big on American power, but used in a restrained way and using all the tools at our disposal, using trade, using the economy, using diplomacy, using the deterrent force of the military.
The instincts are right.
Even as far as immigration is concerned, in the first term, he tried 100 different things to reel in H-1B visas, literally 100 things, and they tried to get the funding.
The intentions arguably are right, but that's really just not enough.
Unless paired with the right team and the right approach and a sustained long-term effort and focus, it's not enough.
And you saw that in the first term.
There was the energy.
There was the enthusiasm.
They had ideas, but they did not have the focus, did not have the personnel, did not have the organizational know-how.
And so things just slipped through the cracks.
And what happened?
This is the headline.
The story is of denial by delay.
You don't have all the time in the world and you don't have all the energy in the world.
And so the way that the permanent bureaucracy in Washington and the interests have beaten the MAGA agenda over the course of the first and the second term is they deny it by delaying it.
Procedural obstacles, court challenges, simply some people just drag their feet in the administration.
It just happens that way.
There was a story publicized recently, and it talked about how Trump asked for options to withdraw from Syria.
And the generals and the chief of staff in the meeting left the Oval Office and looked at each other and said, we're not going to do it.
We're going to pretend we never heard that.
And this is commonplace.
By the time that Trump figures out, it's not happening.
He's being lied to.
He's getting the wrong info.
Well, weeks have gone by, months have gone by.
They're focused on the next initiative.
And this is what happens.
So unless you have the energy and the vigor, unless you have the right personnel, unless you have that sustained effort, the organizational prowess, you are going to get beat.
And the way that I like to think about it is that Washington is like the casino.
And the casino, as you know, is a place where the House always wins.
That's how it's set up.
It's set up so that when the person comes in, they lose all their money.
Like it's a mathematical impossibility.
And that's basically the way Washington and government is set up.
If you want to beat the odds, if you want to beat the House, you need to come at it with a mathematical precision.
It has to be like a heist.
Everything has to be right.
Everything has to be precise.
There has to be planning.
There has to be effort.
You've got to play that long game.
If you don't have that capacity and Trump does not, you lose.
And this is what happens.
And I'll give you the perfect example of it.
Take the tariffs.
We didn't have a chance to cover the tariffs yet.
On Friday, the Supreme Court, they've been adjudicating this for a long time.
They finally struck down Trump's emergency tariffs, which he has invoked using this emergency economic law, the IEEPA.
And now, not only are all the tariffs canceled and null and void, but the government has to give a refund of $150 billion to all the firms that they collected the tariffs from.
This is a huge pain in the ass, huge problem.
The government now has to find not just $150 billion, but interest on the $150 billion.
They're going to be adjudicating that in the courts, how they pay it, who they pay it to, how much they owe.
And you want to know what's so disgusting about this?
Obviously, I disagree with the Supreme Court decision.
But this, like Epstein, like everything else, who do you blame for this?
It is an unforced error by Trump.
In Trump's first term, they considered using these emergency economic powers to levy the tariffs.
That was a consideration in the first term.
They ultimately decided against it because their trade representative, Robert Lighthiser, told them, if you use this law, they will get challenged and then struck down.
That was eight years ago.
Okay.
Eight years ago in the first term, they had the same conversation.
And Lighthizer, who's very good on trade, wrote a book about it.
He said to Trump, do not use the IEEPA.
It's going to get challenged.
It's going to get struck down.
They didn't use it.
Instead, they used a different provision, national security tariffs.
And that requires an investigation and more effort.
But those tariffs were never challenged.
Those tariffs remain in place to this day.
They had that same conversation last year about how they're going to do the tariffs.
And Trump said, we're going to roll the dice.
We're going to use the emergency powers.
We're just going to take the risk.
They have missed deadlines to investigate the national security tariffs.
They have a dozen ongoing investigations for the other tariffs.
They missed all the deadlines.
They blew it.
And it looks like they're making some introductions.
So we're going to transition over here.
We're going to start our coverage.
But point being, this is the story of the first term and the second term.
Trump is just not the guy.
You want to have radical change, which is required.
You need someone that is going to cut through government and the moneyed interests like a fucking sword.
I should say, before we get into it, the biggest thing that I'm looking out for, it's going to be a fairly typical State of the Union, I think.
Here is my prediction, if I can give you, if I can offer you one.
I think that the bulk of the State of the Union, he's going to focus on border security.
That's going to be a big one.
That's really one of the biggest accomplishments.
And in terms of favorability, that is what his voters approve of the most, the handling of the border in particular, which I separate from deportations, which is technically a separate policy.
He's going to talk about border security.
They say he will introduce another tax cut.
He has another chance to use the budget reconciliation process for the year 2026.
And I don't know how that would be possible.
These budget reconciliation bills, they have to at least be revenue neutral.
So if you cut taxes, you need to come up with a revenue increase or a spending cut somewhere else.
You remember the big, beautiful bill, that was utilizing the budget reconciliation process.
They cut taxes, corporate tax cut extension.
It was no tax on tips.
There were some other tax cuts, I believe, on Social Security benefits.
There was a cutout or a carve-out for car loans or something like that.
To pay for all of this, again, it has to be revenue neutral according to economic projections.
They had to cut Medicaid by $800 billion over the course of a decade, I believe it is.
Maybe it was five years.
I don't remember the exact numbers.
And that's very controversial.
So whatever you cut, and they say that Trump is going to introduce another tax cut, he got to pay for it somehow in order to unlock budget reconciliation.
Budget reconciliation is the once-per-year process where you can pass a far-reaching bill with a simple majority in the Senate as long as it relates to revenue increase, spending cuts, or the debt ceiling.
And it has to be at least revenue neutral.
You cannot increase the deficit with this.
So if they introduce the tax cut, they'll have to find a way to make the math work.
They say that he's going to do that tonight.
That will be interesting.
And of course, the other big thing, this is maybe the biggest thing that's on my radar.
As we speak, there is a massive presence of U.S. force in the Middle East.
We're looking down the barrel of a war with Iran coming up very soon.
There is a scheduled third round of negotiations on Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland.
They say that the Omani representative has given Iran's position to the United States, and we are still at an impasse.
So as it stands, as of this afternoon, and this afternoon, there was a closed-door hearing with Marco Rubio and the Gang of Eight in the Senate.
As of this afternoon, it is said that Iran has not agreed to give up their nuclear centrifuges, and the United States is not budging on this.
What's interesting, though, is that there seems to be a little asymmetry here because the deputy foreign minister of Iran said that we're very close to a deal and they're going to be able to get it across the finish line on Thursday.
On the U.S. side, we do not share that assessment at all.
Trump says Iran wants to make a deal, but they're not willing to do what it takes.
They will not capitulate.
And so how Trump approaches that subject tonight may be very interesting.
Some say that he may declare war on Iran, that he may make the case to the American people for a war with Iran, or maybe there will be some new innovation in the Iran policy.
But that might be the single biggest thing to watch tonight is what he has to say about this situation.
Less than five months from now, our country will celebrate an epic milestone in American history, the 250th anniversary of our glorious American independence.
This July 4th, we will mark two and a half centuries of liberty and triumph, progress and freedom in the most incredible and exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the earth.
When I last spoke in this chamber 12 months ago, I had just inherited a nation in crisis with a stagnant economy, inflation at record levels, a wide open border.
horrendous recruitment for military and police, rampant crime at home, and wars and chaos all over the world.
But tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before and a turnaround for the ages.
After four years in which millions and millions of illegal aliens poured across our borders totally unvetted and unchecked, we now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far.
In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.
But we will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.
The flow of deadly fentanyl across our border is down by a record 56 percent in one year.
And last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history.
This is the biggest decline, think of it in recorded history, the lowest number in over 125 years, year 1900.
In fact, substantially before my wonderful father, I had a wonderful father, Fred, before he was born, substantially before he was born.
That's a long time ago.
He wouldn't like me to say that, but that's a long time ago.
The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country.
But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years.
And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7%.
Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states, under my predecessor, it was quite honestly a disaster, is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places.
$1.99 a gallon.
And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.
Mortgage rates are the lowest in four years and falling fast.
And the annual cost of a typical new mortgage is down almost $5,000 just since I took office.
One year.
And low interest rates will solve the Biden-created housing problem while at the same time protecting the values of those people who already own a house that really feel rich for the first time in their lives.
We want to protect those values.
We want to keep those values up.
We're going to do both.
And we are going to keep it that way.
The stock market has set 53 all-time record highs since the election.
Think of that.
One year, boosting pensions, 401ks, and retirement accounts for the millions and millions of Americans.
They're all gaining.
Everybody's up, way up.
In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States.
And when I say less, substantially less.
In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe.
Think of it.
Much less than $1 trillion for four years versus much more than $18 trillion for one year.
What a difference a president makes.
A short time ago, we were a dead country.
Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.
As thousands of new businesses are forming in factories, plants, and laboratories are being built.
We have added 70,000 new construction jobs in just a very short period of time.
It's getting bigger and bigger and stronger.
Nobody can believe what they're watching.
American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day, and we just received from our new friend and partner, Venezuela, more than 80 million barrels of oil.
But I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear, based on their vote and my vote, and in this case, my vote was more important, that I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor, which we will be given and which has been given to many athletes over the years.
But when I say many, not too many, like 12.
It's called the highest civilian honor in our country, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He fought bravely in the famous Battle of Manila, worked so hard.
He was badly wounded and almost killed by enemy machine guns in Luzon.
And 81 years ago this month, he liberated the largest internment camp in the Philippines, one of the largest anywhere in the world.
But he earned many honors, including a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star, came home, started a family, and tonight he is in the gallery looking forward to July 4th, 2026, his 100th birthday.
And Petty Officer Ruskin, I'm pleased to inform you that I am now awarding you the Legion of Merit for extraordinary heroism, which is what it was, extraordinary heroism.
Thank you.
And I'd like to have the military aide to please come down and take care of the service.
From 1776 to today, every generation of Americans has stepped forward to defend life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And they're really doing it for the next generation.
But now it's our turn.
Together, we're building a nation where every child has the chance to reach higher and go further, where government answers to the people, not the powerful, and where the interests of hardworking American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.
That is the debt we owe to the heroes who came before us, and that is the promise we must keep to America for our 250th year.
Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history, and our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully.
Thank you, Republicans.
All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts.
They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead.
But we held strong, and with the great, big, beautiful bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great city.
That's kind of Interest on auto loans tax deductible the first time, but only if the car is made in America.
Recently in Pennsylvania, I met Megan Hemhauser, a devoted mom whose homeschools her children, beautiful, two children, during the day while waiting tables at night as her husband works overtime operating very heavy equipment.
Megan is here this evening and she's happy to tell you that she is so, so much richer because with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and her expanded child tax credit done again by Republicans, Megan and her husband will take home more than $5,000 extra just for the year, cutting her tax bill in more than half.
It was named by a very tall man standing right there in the third row.
Nice man, a good man.
Tax-free investment accounts for every American child.
This is something that's so special and has taken off and gone through the roof.
Millions will be pre-funded courtesy of the U.S. Treasury and private individuals like Michael and Susan Dell, who have donated $6,250,000,000 to fund the Trump accounts for 25 million American children.
They're great people.
When I asked Michael Dell, how do you make all that money?
He said, well, I just sat on my dorm in school, and I made computers, and I'd sell them to people.
And I just kept selling and selling and selling.
Pretty amazing story.
That's called the American Dream.
He sold a lot of computers, a lot of those laptops.
So I congratulate him on that.
But I really thank him and Susan, as well as others like Brad Gerstner.
So with modest additional contributions, young people's accounts could grow to over $100,000 or more by the time they turn 18.
Think of it.
How much money is that for somebody that started with nothing?
Over $100,000?
It could be much more than that.
To make this investment in our children's future, go to trumpeaccounts.gov, trumpaccounts.gov.
And a lot of people are doing it.
It's setting every record in the book.
It's popular.
They knew what it was going to take.
I'm so proud of them.
I'm so proud of the people that got it started.
And now it's just taken off.
One of the primary reasons for our country's stunning economic turnaround.
The biggest in history where the Dow Jones broke 50,000 four years ahead of schedule and the S ⁇ P hit 7,000 where it wasn't supposed to do it for many years were tariffs.
I used these tariffs, took in hundreds of billions of dollars to make great deals for our country, both economically and on a national security basis.
Everything was working well.
Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars.
They were ripping us so badly.
You all know that.
Everybody knows it.
Even the Democrats know it.
They just don't want to say it.
And yet these countries are now happy, and so are we.
We made deals.
The deals are all done.
And they're happy.
They're not making money like they used to, but we're making a lot of money.
There was no inflation, tremendous growth.
And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly.
And 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn't.
They got it totally wrong.
They got it really wrong.
And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court.
It just came down.
It came down.
Very unfortunate ruling.
But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, right, Scott?
Knowing that the legal power that I, as president, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them, and therefore they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court's unfortunate involvement.
So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful countries saving, it's saving our country, the kind of money we're taking in.
Peace protecting many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs.
I wouldn't have been able to settle them without.
We'll 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.
It's already time-tested and approved.
And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.
that was all over the place this guy just can't give a speech anymore moving forward factories jobs investment and trillions and trillions of dollars will continue pouring into the united states of america because we finally have a president who puts america first I put America first.
I love America.
For decades before I came along, we had the exact opposite.
From trade to health care, from energy to immigration, everything was stolen and rigged in order to drain the wealth out of the productive, hardworking people who make our country great, who make our country run.
Under Biden and his corrupt partners in Congress and beyond, it reached a breaking point with the Green News scam, opened borders for everyone.
They poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions.
There were murderers, 11,888 murders.
They came into our country.
You allowed that to happen.
And record-setting inflation that cost the typical family $34,000 in just a speck of time.
Now, the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability a word.
They just used it.
Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure.
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're getting it down.
And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.
Nobody can believe when they see the kind of numbers, and especially energy, when they see energy going down to numbers like that, they cannot believe it.
It's like another big tax cut.
I'm also confronting one of the biggest rip-offs of our times: the crushing costs of health care caused by you.
Since the passage of the Unaffordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as Obamacare, big insurance companies have gotten rich.
It was meant for the insurance companies, not for the people.
With our government giving them hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
Their stock prices soared 1,1200, 1,400, and even 1,700 percent, like nothing else.
That's why I introduced the great health care plan.
I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.
In addition, my plan requires maximum price transparency.
That's a big deal.
Sounds so simple, so big.
And I did that in my first term, and the Democrats immediately terminated it with full knowledge that they were doing a very bad thing for the people.
Costs were going to go way up, and that's what happened.
And now I'm bringing them way down on health care and everything else.
I'm also ending the wildly inflated cost of prescription drugs like has never happened before.
Other presidents tried to do it, but they never could.
They tried.
Most didn't try, actually.
But they tried.
They said they tried.
They couldn't do it.
They didn't even come close.
They were all talk and no action.
But I got it done.
Under my just enacted most favored nation agreements, Americans, who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs, Anywhere the lowest price
so in my first year of the second term Should be my third term, but strange things happen I took prescription drugs, a very big part of health care, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest.
The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent, and more, all available right now at a new website called trumprx.gov.
And I didn't name that one either, by the way.
And here tonight is the very first customer ever to get that big discount.
And it is big.
Catherine Rayner.
For five years, she and her husband have struggled with infertility, and they turned to IVF.
One drug has been costing Catherine $4,000 to purchase.
But a few weeks ago, she logged onto the TrumpRX website and got that same drug that cost $4,000, got it for under $500, a reduction of much more, actually, than $3,500.
Catherine, we are all praying for you and you're going to be a great mom.
So now I'm calling on Congress to codify my most favored nation program into law.
Now, the one thing I'm not sure it matters because it's going to be very hard for somebody that comes along after me to say, let's raise drug prices by 700 or 800 percent.
But John and Mike, if you don't mind, codify it anyway.
They may do it.
Codify it anyway.
Thank you.
Many Americans are also concerned that energy demand from AI data centers could unfairly drive up their electric utility bills.
Tonight I'm pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new rate payer protection pledge.
You know what that is?
We're telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.
They can build their own power plants as part of their factory so that no one's prices will go up.
And in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down.
This is a unique strategy never used in this country before.
We have an old grid.
It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that's needed.
So I'm telling them they can build their own plant.
They're going to produce their own electricity.
It will ensure the company's ability to get electricity while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you and could be very substantial for all of you cities and towns.
You're going to see some good things happen over the next number of years.
Another pillar of the American dream that has been under attack is homeownership.
With us tonight is Race O'Wiggins, a mom of two from Houston.
She placed bids on 20 homes and lost all of those bids to gigantic investment firms that bypassed inspection, paid all cash, and turned those houses into rentals, stealing away her American dreams.
She was devastated.
Stories like this are why last month I signed executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up in the thousands single-family homes.
And now I'm asking Congress to make that ban permanent because homes for people, really, that's what we want.
We want homes for people, not for corporations.
Corporations are doing just fine.
Rayselle, thank you very much.
Good luck with your home.
You'll get one soon.
We're also working to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement.
And under this administration, we will always protect Social Security and Medicare.
They are not protecting it for our seniors.
will always protect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid.
Since I took office, the typical 401k balance is up by at least $30,000.
That's a lot of money.
We have millions and millions of people because the stock market has done so well, setting all those records.
Your 401ks are way up.
Yet half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer.
To remedy this gross disparity, I'm announcing that next year my administration will give these oft-forgotten American workers, great people, the people that built our country, access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.
We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year.
As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information.
Delilah Colton was only five years old in June 2024 when a 18-wheel tractor trailer plowed into her stopped car, traveling at 60 miles an hour or more.
The driver was an illegal alien, led in by Joe Biden and given a commercial driver's license by open borders politicians in California.
Doctors said Delilah would never be able to walk or talk, have a good life.
She wouldn't even be able to eat again.
But against all odds, she is now in the first grade learning to walk.
And she's here this evening with her dad, Marcus, a fantastic man.
Many, if not most illegal aliens, do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger, or location.
That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah law barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
And yesterday, as you probably saw at the White House, I hosted a ceremony with Americans who lost their treasured loved ones to the scourge of illegal immigration.
People came into our country, how we allowed this to happen with our open borders.
These are the angel moms and families that for decades our government betrayed and our media totally ignored.
Totally, it was terrible.
Hard to believe, actually.
In 2023, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named Lisbeth Medina was supposed to perform in her town's Christmas parade, but she never arrived.
Her mother, Jacqueline, went home to look for her and she found her lying dead in a bathtub, bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 times.
Lisbeth's killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family's life violently and viciously.
Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals for our country at record numbers, and we're getting them the hell out of here fast.
We don't want to.
Thank you very much, Jacqueline.
Thank you.
We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance.
If they ever got elected, they would open up those borders to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world.
The only thing standing between Americans and a wide open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress.
Thank you.
As we speak, Democrats in this chamber have cut off all funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
It's all cut off.
It's all cut off.
They have instituted another Democrat shutdown, the first one costing us two points on GDP.
Two points we lost on GDP, which probably made them quite happy, actually.
Now they have closed the agency responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists and murderers.
Tonight I'm demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States, and also for helping people clean up their snow.
You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens.
In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.
They are blocking the removal of these people out of our country.
And perhaps most importantly, I'm asking you to approve the Save America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.
One more opportunity to show common sense in government.
In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle.
In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new gender, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents.
Who can believe that we're even speaking about things like this?
15 years ago, if somebody was up here and said that, they'd say, what's wrong with him?
But now we have to say it because it's going on all over numerous states without even telling the parents.
But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents' arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents' will.
Who would believe that we've been talking about that?
No one cares more about protecting America's youth than our wonderful First Lady, now a movie star.
She's a movie star.
Can you believe it?
Who would have believed that?
This year, she has had an incredible impact.
Legislation, advancing a landmark executive order on foster care, and helping secure $30 million to launch the Melania Trump Force and Youth Independence Initiative.
It's a tremendous, really a tremendous thing that happened and had a lot of bipartisan support.
She gets much better bipartisan support than I do.
I get none.
She gets a lot.
Someday you're going to have to tell me how you did that.
And students and educators in every state have joined the First Lady's efforts in the presidential AI challenge, keeping America's next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future.
Tonight we welcome two young people whose lives reflect the First Lady's impact: Sierra Burns and Everest Nevermont.
I'm very proud to say that during my time in office, both the first four years and in particular this last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity, and belief in God.
This is especially true among young people.
And a big part of that had to do with my great friend, Charlie Kirk, a great guy.
So last year, Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyred, really, martyred for his beliefs.
His wonderful wife, Erica, is with us tonight.
Erika, please stand.
Thank you, Erika.
Been through a lot.
In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
We love religion and we love bringing it back and it's coming back at levels that nobody actually thought possible It's really a beautiful thing to see.
Above all, at least America's promise requires keeping our communities safe.
We have made incredible strides, yet dangerous repeat offenders continue to be released by pro-crime Democrat politicians again and again.
We are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who's been through hell, Anya Zaretzka.
In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter, so beautiful, what a beautiful young woman.
Irina fled war-turn, war-torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, North Carolina.
And by the way, what's going on with Charlotte?
Last summer, 23-year-old Irena was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.
No one will ever forget there were people on that train.
No one will ever forget the expression of terror on Irena's face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life.
She died instantly.
She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal, set free to kill in America, came in through open borders.
Mrs. Zaretska, tonight, I promise you, we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter, Irina.
How do you not stand?
How do you not stand?
I'm asking this Congress to pass tough legislation to ensure that violent and dangerous repeat offenders are put behind bars and importantly, that they stay there.
Starting last summer, I deployed our National Guard and federal law enforcement to restore law and order to our most dangerous cities, including Memphis, Tennessee, big success.
New Orleans, Louisiana, big success.
And our nation's capital itself, Washington, D.C., where we have almost no crime anymore in Washington, D.C. How did that happen?
In fact, crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded.
And murders in D.C. this January were down close to 100 percent from a year ago.
One of the sick people, one of the brave service members who helped achieve this stunning turnaround was 20-year-old West Virginia Army National Guard specialist Sarah Beckstrom.
After a four-month deployment, she voluntarily extended her service and her rank was going to be lifted.
She was doing so well.
They were so proud of her.
But the very next day, she was on patrol near the White House when she was ambushed and shot in the head by a terrorist monster from Afghanistan.
Shouldn't have been in our country.
And all because she wore the uniform of our nation, she was shot.
He traveled here because he didn't like people wearing our uniform.
He was sick and deranged.
Shouldn't have been in our country.
Sarah Beckstrom died in order to defend our capital, and we are honored to be joined by her wonderful parents, Gary and Evilie.
Your daughter was a true American patriot, and she will be greatly missed.
She was a great person.
I saw reports on her.
They've never seen anything like it.
So sorry.
Thank you very much.
A great young lady.
I saw reports that were like, perfect.
She was perfect.
Serving alongside Sarah that day was Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf.
The terrorist shot Andrew in the head, and no one thought he could possibly make it.
The two of them, Sarah and Andrew, both shot violently in the head.
Neither was expected to make it.
They weren't even given a chance, except his wonderful mother named Melody, who I spoke to the same night, and she was so positive.
The doctors thought that Andrew was gone, but his mother said, no, no, Mr. President, Andrew will be fine.
He's going to make it.
I've never seen anything like it.
I mean, he was given almost no chance.
She said, I have no doubt, sir, he's going to be okay.
This was a conversation that I had with her that night with her son laying helplessly in bed, blood all over.
Everybody is praying, she said, sir, he will be okay.
The doctors didn't understand what she was saying.
And after looking at the results of the damage done, neither did I.
She was so strong and conclusive that even Andrew's great father felt she didn't really understand the gravity of the situation.
With God's help, Andrew has battled back from the edge of death, and we're talking about the edge of death.
On his way to a miraculous recovery, he's got a little work to do, but he's doing great.
Nice to see you.
He's a good-looking guy.
Nice to see you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you very much.
So, Andrew, while you're up, now I'm going to ask a highly respected General James Seward to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom with the award created by our late, great President George Washington himself.
35 million people said the Prime Minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement.
Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda, and of course the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level.
It's just about there.
And I want to thank Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for your help.
And they came back, and when we got all of the living hostages back, and many, many before then, but I always said those last 20 are going to be very tough.
But we got many, many more, hundreds.
But I said those last 20 are going to be tough.
We got them back.
But we only got back 14 or 15 of the dead of the 28.
And believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel, and they dug and they dug and they dug.
It's a tough thing to do, going through bodies all over, passing up 100 bodies sometimes for each one that they found.
Tough job.
And they finally got it back to 27.
And then Steve and Jared, they got it back to 28.
They found all 28.
Nobody thought that was possible, but we did it.
And I remember the family of the 28th, they were so grieved, but they were so happy, as happy as it's possible to be.
They had their boy back.
The mother said, sir, we have our boy back.
What a period of time that was, but we got them all back.
So thank you both very much.
And we're working very hard to end the ninth war, the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month.
Think of that, 25,000 soldiers are dying a month.
A war which would have never happened if I were president.
It would have never happened.
As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America.
That's why in a brave collaboration 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 had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Many decades.
Since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate.
They've killed and maimed thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands and even millions of people with what's called roadside bombs.
They were the kings of the roadside bomb.
And we took out Salimani.
I did that during my first term.
Had a huge impact.
He was the father of the roadside road.
And just over the last couple of months with the protests, they've killed at least, it looks like, 32,000 protests.
32,000 protesters in their own country.
They shot them and hung them.
We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.
But this is some terrible people.
They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.
After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular nuclear weapons.
Yet they continue to start it all over.
We wiped it out and they want to start all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.
We are in negotiations with them.
They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words.
Because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power that we built together.
It's really called peace through strength, and it's been very, very effective.
So thanks to Republicans in Congress, we're investing that record number of dollars, have no choice, in the United States Armed Forces.
Also creating a lot of jobs, but we're not even doing it for that reason.
Because as I said, we have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.
And 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.
Have to rebuild that program a little bit, but it won't take long.
But we got the money, and it was $1,775, and they wanted my approval.
And I said, what's the number?
$1,775.
I said, wait a minute.
For one more dollar, we can have $1,776.
I said, we're going to figure that.
I never asked anybody if we could afford it.
One more dollar.
I said $1,776.
And I said, that's good.
And I'll tell you what, our military, that was four months ago, our military, I never see a person in the military that doesn't thank me for it, so we're honored to do it.
They deserve it.
And we call it 1776.
It was great.
And we love our military.
We love our law enforcement.
We love our firemen.
You know, the firemen don't get mentioned enough.
We love our firemen.
We're also restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism, and foreign interference.
For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.
That's why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea.
You probably noticed that.
We very seriously damaged their fishing industry also.
Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.
We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all.
You saw that yesterday.
In January, in January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex, spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history.
No one's seen anything like it.
Foreign leaders, I won't tell you who called me and they said, very impressive.
They couldn't believe, they all watched.
They saw what happened.
This is a different fighting force than we had years ago when we fought to tie.
You know, it's a great fighting force.
I'm so proud of it.
Look at Space Force, Space Force is my baby, because we did that.
My baby is becoming so important.
And America's armed forces overwhelmed.
All defenses are not only defeated, enemy, good fighters, to end the reign of outlawed dictator Nicolas Maduro and bring him to face American justice.
And this was an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States, and it also opens up a bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela.
We're working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Del Codriguez, to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly.
She grew up in a tight-knit Venezuelan family and was especially close to her beloved uncle Enrique.
But after Enrique ran for office and opposed Maduro, he was kidnapped by Maduro security forces and thrown into the regime's really infamous prison in Caracas.
Alejandro feared she would never see her uncle again.
She feared for her own life also.
But since the raid, we have worked with the new leadership and they have ordered the closure of that vile prison and released hundreds of political prisoners already.
With more to come, Alejandro, I'm pleased to inform you that not only has your uncle been released, but he is here tonight.
We brought him over to celebrate his freedom with you in person.
There were many heroes on that January raid to capture Maduro, really great heroes.
It was very dangerous.
They knew we were coming.
They were all set.
But the deeds of one warrior that night will live forever in the eternal chronicles of military valor.
Chief Warrant Officer 5, Eric Slover, planned the mission and was the flight lead in the cockpit of the first helicopter, a big, beautiful, powerful helicopter.
It was a massive Chinook carrying, as you can imagine, many, many American warfighters.
Wearing the dog tags his wife Amy had blessed with holy water before he left.
She knew it was going to be a rough one.
Eric steered the Chinook under the cover of night and descended swiftly upon Maduro's heavily protected military fortress.
This was a major military installation protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technology.
How did that work out?
Not too good.
While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle, and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip, one bullet after another.
He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces.
And yet, despite the fact that the use of his legs was vital to successful helicopter flight, legs are the most important part of flying a helicopter.
To deliver the many commandos who would capture and detain Maduro was the only thing Eric was thinking about.
Then even as he was gushing blood, which was flowing back down the aisle, helicopter lands at a steep angle.
The machine guns stood right in front of him.
They were right in front of him, two machine gunners who escaped the wrath of the previous planes.
Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat.
Turn the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could have been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory.
Only after safely landing the helicopter with all the warriors aboard in the exact right spot, which was vital to the mission, probably would have had to maybe cancel the mission if that didn't happen.
Eric told his co-pilot, also wounded, but not as gravely, to take over.
I'm about ready to pass out.
The success of the entire mission and the lives of his fellow warriors hinge on Eric's ability to take searing pain.
It was unbelievable what's happened to his legs of the bullets and keep on flying and landing.
People knew what was happening.
Everybody in the back of the helicopter knew because they saw the blood pouring down the aisle.
Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I'm thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife Amy, Eric, and Amy, come on in.
In recognition of Eric's actions above and beyond the call of duty, I would now like to ask General Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation's highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Well, thank you very much, Eric and Amy.
Great to get to know you.
I met with them and with a lot of their fellow warriors at Fort Bragg recently.
You notice the name Fort Bragg?
We have it back.
We brought it back.
We won the First World War with it, the Second World War with it, and then they decided to change the name.
So we changed it back.
Everybody wanted to change back, too.
And ten of Eric's fellow warriors from that incredible night of victory will also be receiving medals at a private ceremony that will soon be held at the White House.
And Eric will do that.
Thank you, Eric.
That's a big one.
Tonight we've celebrated many truly extraordinary American patriots, but there is one last living legend to honor before we go.
He is one more heroic American aviator, Navy fighter pilot.
Royce Williams served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, flying more than 220 missions.
In disguise over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime.
Legendary dogfight.
Flying through blizzard conditions, his squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes.
It was his first aerial combat of the war, and despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Royce led the takedown of four enemy jets and almost destroyed the others, vanquishing his adversaries while taking 263 bullets to his own plane and being seriously hurt.
His story was secret for over 50 years.
He didn't even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew.
But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
He was a legend long before this evening.
Royce, please stand up, and I will ask the First Lady of the United States to present Captain Royce Williams with his Congressional Medal of Honor.
I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I'm not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn't know why I'd be taking it, but if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday.
But you know, that's our highest honor, Congressional Medal of Honor, and that's a big thing.
And it's an honor to be in the same room with you.
250 years is a long time in the life of a nation, but in another sense, it's really a mere moment in the eye of history.
Two of the gentlemen we met in the gallery this evening took their first breaths one century ago, 100 years before that on July 4th, 1826, the author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant, Thomas Jefferson, drew his last breath.
Just a single long human lifespan separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight.
Everything our nation has done, everything we have achieved, has been the work of those few great lifetimes.
In those brief chapters, Americans built this nation from 13 humble colonies into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom, the strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, most successful nation in all of history.
Americans ventured out across the daunting and dangerous continent.
We carved paths through an unforgiving wilderness, settled a boundless frontier, and tamed the beautiful but very, very dangerous wild west.
From empty marshes and wide open plains, we raised up the world's greatest cities.
Together, we mastered the world's mightiest industries and shattered histories, monstrous tyrannies.
And we liberated millions from the chains of fascism, communism, oppression, and terror.
Americans lifted humanity into the skies on the wings of aluminum and steel.
And then we launched mankind into the stars on rockets powered by sheer American will and unyielding American pride.
We wired the globe with our ingenuity.
We captivated the planet with American culture.
And now we are pioneering the next great American breakthroughs that will change the entire world.
All of this and so much more is the enduring legacy, unmatched glory of the hardworking patriots who built and defended this country and who still carry the hopes and freedoms on all of humanity's backs.
For years they were forgotten, betrayed, and cast aside, but that great betrayal is over and they will never be forgotten again.
Because when the world needs courage, daring, vision, and inspiration, it is still turning to America.
And when God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask.
There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase, no horizon too distant for us to claim.
For our destiny is written by the hand of Providence, and these first 250 years were just the beginning.
From the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan, from the sun-kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields of the Dakotas, and from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., the golden age of America is upon us.
The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended.
It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.
And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before.
I think he got started a little bit after 8 o'clock.
So about hour, 45 minutes, hour and a half, something like that.
Yeah, it's hard to say how that will be received.
I think that got off to a rough start.
That's for sure.
I think the organization of the speech, especially the beginning, was just off.
I can see what he was trying to go for.
He's going for the 250-year anniversary thing.
But the preamble was not good.
That was not clear in the introduction.
There was some good stuff.
There were some bright spots in there.
I think overall, though, whoa, that's a big woman.
The way that it will be received is that it's extremely combative.
They will say, I think the word of the day, people will call it divisive.
That is what you're going to hear in the Washington Post and the New York Times.
It's a divisive, combative speech, long speech.
But from the standpoint of the actual substance of it, it wasn't terrible.
Championed his major accomplishments really only in the first 10 minutes.
I don't think that he spent a ton of time, actually.
It was really front-loaded.
Didn't talk too much about the economy.
I mean, because here's the thing, it's a work in progress.
They're a year in.
The numbers aren't terrific.
They got a lot of that out in the first 10, 15 minutes of the speech.
And a lot of it was dedicated to the legislative agenda, the SAVE Act.
I know that the administration does want to get this bill passed that targets insider trading in Congress.
They think that's a winner.
The problem, though, is that these things will not happen.
The SAVE Act, I don't see Democrats voting for that because what he said is true.
They want to cheat.
They need to cheat.
They're going to cheat.
They're not going to vote for the SAVE Act.
And I don't know that they'll even pass the insider trading.
I mean, maybe they will.
I don't know that they want to give him that layup.
I don't know that they want to give him the victory.
There were some good moments.
I thought it was very compelling when he brought out Irina Zarutska's parents.
I thought it was powerful when he had Congress stand up if you believe you should put citizens over illegal immigrants.
There was some good stuff in there.
And Trump in the State of the Union, if you've been with us for years and years, you know he loves the veterans, loves, and especially for the state of the union, he looks at it as a TV spot.
So in his mind, this is a variety show.
And so there's drama and there's tension, and he likes telling these stories and bringing out the guests, and he likes the medal ceremony.
He loves to load it up with stuff like that.
And he did it again.
Loves to load it up with those types of things.
In his mind, like I said, this is a variety show.
So he wants tears.
He wants anger.
He wants to play on the emotions.
He wants the drama, the reunion with the Venezuelan dissident, the Medal of Honor recognition, all that sort of stuff.
And of course, every state of the union, they'll bring out the guests, but he really likes to load it up.
And he loves those little dramatic moments.
And then, of course, he loves the American history stuff.
All of his rallies, all the speeches, they always end in the same way, which is to tell the story of America, all that kind of stuff, which honestly, for me, at this point, it's take it or leave it.
It's not particularly profound, well-written, well-executed.
In my view, it's just fluff.
So I don't know that this speech really moves the needle.
I think that people are going to see in it what they want.
Liberals are going to hate it.
Conservatives are going to love it.
They're going to love the combativeness.
I think overall, though, the antagonistic nature of it, I think that turns people off.
I obviously love it.
When he says the transgenders are crazy, that's going to go viral.
That'll be the clip, I think.
The illegal immigration thing, the transgender thing, those will be the viral moments.
And I think Fox News and the usual suspects are going to push that out and say, wow, just wow.
Democrats wouldn't stand up for the citizens.
So it'll do what it's intended to do.
But if the significance of the speech is to reset ahead of 26, it doesn't do that.
I don't think it was focused enough.
It was not about unity.
Not that I'm opposed to that.
I like the antagonistic nature of it.
I don't think there's a very strong call to action.
I think it was a very average speech.
I would give it a B.
I would give it a B, maybe a C. Exceedingly average.
Some fun moments, don't get me wrong.
I mean, to me, I look at that as self-indulgent and fun.
I like, that's, I think, what everyone will talk about this week.
He kept directly and aggressively attacking the Democrats, just throwing it at them.
And they were seething and he was reveling in that.
Like, I don't think you should be looking at that.
Okay.
So I think that's what everyone, that's just rough.
Everyone will be talking about that aspect of it.
And from my point of view, I like it because I'm a far-right extremist.
So I think the Democrats are the problem.
The left are the problem.
However, I think most people, especially older people and middle-of-the-road people, I think they're going to look at it as maybe too antagonistic, maybe too provocative, unsettling.
So I don't know how much play you're going to get with that.
I don't know if that's going to be well received.
And so if the pitch is this is supposed to be some kind of midterm reset, this is supposed to get everybody back on track.
I don't see it.
I think if anything, this is just the same old Trump, same old Trump, holding on to grudges, kind of delusional assessment of where the country is, these totally impotent calls to action.
Everybody needs to pass the SAVE Act.
Okay, well, you know, good luck with that.
It's Trump.
It's classic Trump.
It's everything that you expect turned up to the next level.
So that's my review of the speech.
Like I said at the beginning of the show, I think it's about what we expected.
He hit on border security, talked a little bit about some of these other victories.
Some of the numbers with the economy are okay.
I don't know.
Take it or leave it.
The big surprise is no announcement on the situation with Iran.
People were expecting and people said that maybe there'd be a declaration of war or maybe there'd be some new development there, but we really just got the drive-by on Iran, really didn't talk much about it.
Nothing about Epstein was not mentioned at all.
I thought I heard that Epstein victims were guests.
They must have been guests of other people because obviously he didn't even mention, he didn't even name Epstein.
Didn't talk about the DOJ really at all.
And talked about the National Guard deployments, but only the ones to Memphis and New Orleans because the other ones were a flop.
Chicago, Minneapolis, LA were a total joke.
So we only brought out, and the reason being is because Memphis and New Orleans are in Republican states where the Republican governor requested the guard.
In the blue states, Trump had to activate the guard against the wishes of the governor and ultimately pulled them out.
So it wasn't successful.
You're going to see what you're going to see.
I mean, for me, like I said, as a hard right guy, as a far-right guy, it's a pep rally.
And you like to see that combativeness.
You like to see the Democrats get shit on.
I like the seething.
And I thought it was a high-energy speech.
It was a little meandering at times.
Obviously, he's 100 years old, so he's losing it a little bit.
And so it definitely drags at times.
And sometimes you don't even know what he's saying.
For the most part, though, it was a long speech.
It was pretty high energy.
Not, I don't think, particularly well written, not particularly compelling.
Aside from some of those guests, it's not a very rhetorically lofty or powerful speech.
Okay, here we go.
This is a Democrat response from the governor of Virginia.
We are gathered here in the chambers of the House of Burgesses.
In 1705, the people of the Virginia colony gathered here to take on the extraordinary task of governing themselves.
Before there was a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, or a Bill of Rights, there were people in this room.
The people who served here ultimately dreamed of what a new nation, unlike anything the world had ever seen, could be.
The United States was founded on the idea that ordinary people could reject the unacceptable excesses of poor leadership, band together to demand better of their government, and create a nation that would be an example for the world.
And this year, as we celebrate 250 years since America declared our independence from tyranny, I can think of no better place to speak to you as we reflect on the current state of our union.
Tonight, as we watched our nation's lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress, we did not hear the truth from our president.
So let's speak plainly and honestly.
And let me ask you, the American people watching at home, three questions.
Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
Is the president working to keep Americans safe both at home and abroad?
Is the president working for you?
As I campaigned for governor last year, I traveled to every corner of Virginia and I heard the same pressing concern everywhere.
Costs are too high in housing, health care, energy, and child care.
And I know these same conversations are being had all across this country.
Because since this president took office last year, his reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.
Small businesses have suffered, farmers have suffered, some losing entire markets.
Every day, Americans are paying the price.
And even though the Supreme Court struck these tariffs down four days ago, the damage to us, the American people, has already been done.
Meanwhile, the president is planning for new tariffs, another massive tax hike on you and your family.
And Republicans in Congress, they remain unwilling to assert their constitutional authority to stop him.
They're making your life harder.
They're making your life more expensive.
They're even making it more difficult to see a doctor.
Rural health clinics in Virginia and across the country are already closing their doors thanks to the so-called One Big Beautiful bill, championed by the President and Republicans in Congress.
And tonight, the President celebrated this law, the one threatening rural hospitals, stripping health care for millions of Americans and driving up costs in energy and housing, all while cutting food programs for hungry kids.
But here in Virginia, I am working with our state legislature to lower costs and make the Commonwealth more affordable.
And it's not just me.
Democrats across the country are laser focused on affordability in our nation's capital and in state capitals and communities across America.
In the most innovative and exceptional nation in the history of the world, Americans deserve to know that their leaders are focused on addressing the problems that keep them up at night.
Problems that dictate where you live, whether you can afford to start a business, or whether you have to skip a prescription in order to buy groceries.
So I'll ask again, is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
We all know the answer is no.
I grew up in a house of service.
My mother was a nurse and my father was a career law enforcement officer.
I began my career by following in my father's footsteps as a federal agent working money laundering and narcotics cases.
I work side by side with local and state police to keep our community safe and to uphold and enforce the law.
Law enforcement officers across the country know that it is a unique responsibility to do the serious work of investigating crimes, comforting victims, and making arrests.
It's about building trust, and that requires an abiding sense of duty and commitment to community.
And yet, our president has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities, where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans.
They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies.
They have sent children, a little boy in a blue bunny hat, children to far-off detention centers.
And they have killed American citizens in our streets.
And they have done it all with their faces masked from accountability.
Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children, or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.
Our president told us tonight that we are safer.
Because these agents arrest mothers and detain children?
Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed, not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.
After working in law enforcement, I continued my career of service as a CIA officer, working undercover to protect the United States and our allies from global threats, terrorism, nuclear weapons.
and the aggression of adversarial nations around the globe.
But as the President spoke of his perceived successes tonight, he continues to cede economic power and technological strength to Russia, bow down to China, bow down to a Russian dictator, and make plans for war with Iran.
Here's the truth.
Over the last year, through doge, mass firings, and the appointment of deeply unserious people to our nation's most serious positions, our president has endangered the long and storied history of the United States of America being a force for good.
So I'll ask again, is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad?
We all know the answer is no.
In his speech tonight, the president did what he always does.
He lied, he scapegoated, and he distracted.
And he offered no real solutions to our nation's pressing challenges, so many of which he is actively making worse.
He tries to divide us.
He tries to enrage us, to pit us against one another, neighbor against neighbor.
And sometimes he succeeds.
And so you have to ask, who benefits from his rhetoric, his policies, his actions, the short list of laws he's pushed through this Republican Congress.
Somebody must be benefiting.
He's enriching himself, his family, his friends.
The scale of the corruption is unprecedented.
There's the cover-up of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, posing up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms, putting his name and face on buildings all over our nation's capital.
This is not what our founders envisioned, not by a long shot.
So I'll ask again, is the president working for you?
We all know the answer is no.
But here's the special thing about America.
On our 250th anniversary, we know better than any nation what is possible when ordinary citizens like those who once dreamed right here in this room reject the unacceptable and demand more of their government.
We see it in the determination of students organizing school walkouts all across the country, whose voices are becoming so powerful that the governor of Texas seeks to silence them.
We see it in the bravery of Americans in Minnesota standing up for their communities, from peacefully protesting in sub-zero temperatures to carpooling children to school so that their immigrant parents are not ripped away from them in the parking lot.
As a mother of three school-aged daughters, I am inspired by their bravery.
But I am sickened that it is necessary.
And Americans across the country are taking action.
They are going to the ballot box to reject this chaos.
With their votes, they are writing a new story, a more hopeful story.
In November, I won my election by 15 points.
And we won 13 new seats in our state legislature because voters decided they wanted something different.
Our campaign earned votes from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everyone in between because they knew as citizens they could demand more, that they could vote for what they believe matters, and that they didn't need to be constrained by a party or political affiliation.
This is happening across the country.
New Jersey elected Mikey Sherrill as governor in a double-digit victory.
Democrats flip state legislative seats in places like Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas.
The list goes on and on.
Ordinary Americans are stepping up to run in the spirit of our forefathers.
They are running to demand more and to do more for their neighbors and communities.
I know this story well.
I first ran for office in 2018 alongside dozens of other Democrats who did the seemingly impossible, flipping 41 seats in Congress.
In my case, I was the first Democrat elected in 50 years, swinging our district 17 points.
Those who are stepping up now to run will win in November because Americans, you at home, know you can demand more and that we are working to lower costs.
We are working to keep our communities and our country safe, and we are working for you.
In his farewell address, George Washington warned us about the possibility of, quote, cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men rising to power.
But he also encouraged us, all Americans, to unite in a common cause, to move this nation forward.
That is our charge once more, and that is what we are seeing across the country.
It is deeply American and patriotic to do so, and it is how we ensure that the state of our union remains strong, not just this year, but for the next 250 years as well, because we, the people, have the power to make change, the power to stand up for what is right, the power to demand more of our nation.
We'll talk a little bit more about the state of the union.
Then I'm going to read these super chats.
Then I have to go to the bathroom.
I have to go to, I just drank this huge glass of water, so I'm going to read these, but I'll hold it.
I'll hold it in.
It's not a problem.
I'm a professional.
All right.
Well, let's talk a little bit more about this.
Then we will get through the super chats.
Then that's it.
It's already, I've been streaming for three hours.
So it's been a long stream.
Well, there you have it.
You know, it's a little bit clarifying once you see the Democrat response because they actually have a message.
And you can tell from that whole, I don't know what that was, maybe five, 10 minutes.
From the Democrat response, they are running on the affordability issue.
And that's the same thing they used to hammer Republicans last year.
And for those that don't know, she is this, well, she's considered a center-left Democrat.
She won in Virginia, flipped it from red to blue, carried all those delegates in the state legislature in a major upset.
Like she said, she carried the state by 15 points.
It was at one time considered a purple state, and they did have a Republican governor there before, Greg Youngkin or Glenn Youngkin.
And so this is seen as a sign of things to come, that Virginia is a blue state, and the center-left Democrats talking about affordability are going to be very competitive.
This was in November of 2025, so just a few months ago.
And the story of that election was the same, which is that it's the economy.
The economy is not doing as well as it should be.
And at the minimum, perceptions of the economy are still not good.
The public's perception of prices and the long-term economic outlook is not good.
And so whether that's real or not, it's really immaterial.
That's the perception.
And as long as Democrats run on that, they're going to be successful.
And to me, there's just a gulf between the Republican messaging and the Democrat messaging.
What would you say the Republican messaging was from that state of the union?
It's really slop.
It's slopulism.
It's the hockey team.
It's this golden age stuff, the America 250 anniversary, the veterans, and you love the veterans, but this is just patriot slop.
It's right-wing populism slop, and they're running on that.
And what was interesting in the state of the union on affordability, Trump talked about housing prices and getting mortgage rates down.
He talked about health care and drug prices.
So he talked about the issue.
But maybe the most memorable thing he said about it is that he basically hand-waved away and dismissed the idea that affordability is a real concern.
So he talked about some of the main issues concerning affordability, like the no tax on tips and mortgage rates and housing prices.
And so he actually did weigh in on a few of those things for a little bit of time.
But to me, the memorable part is when he said, oh, the Democrats are running on affordability.
Well, I don't know where they got that idea from.
And I think that comes across as so out of touch, especially considering the political defeat that Republicans were dealt in November, because it was all about affordability.
That was Momdani.
That was New Jersey.
That was Virginia.
And Trump, I think, is just delusional on this issue from an electoral point of view.
And he said this at rallies.
He said, oh, I won affordability.
I won on that issue.
And it's like, no, you didn't.
You're not winning on that one.
You're not winning.
You didn't win.
Republicans aren't winning.
And it's a big problem.
The perception is that the economy is not doing well for one reason or another.
And there are signs, there are indicators that it's doing well.
Like you mentioned, the stock prices and housing prices, assets are appreciating.
But in other ways, people feel like they're being stretched.
People feel like they're being squeezed.
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of this.
Like I said, there are some other indicators, some delinquencies on car loans, on mortgages.
People feel like the economy is not doing well.
And historically, that is the big indicator.
Is the economy doing well?
Do people feel like the economy is doing well?
If they don't, you lose the election.
And so what I see in the Democrat response is they are taking that to the bank.
That's their playbook.
That's what they ran on in November of 25.
That's what they're running on now.
And as long as they stay away from the thornier stuff, like, look, I think they realize the transgender issue is an albatross.
Maybe even abortion.
didn't pay the dividends they thought it would in 2024.
Now they know the playbook, which is they steer clear of the more divisive stuff.
They present as normal, centrist, moderate, and they're playing up a few things.
It's affordability is the big one.
Lately, they're also playing up, though, the anti-corruption angle.
And that's a powerful argument because these things are actually also related.
Hitting affordability while also hitting on the so-called oligarchy, the billionaires, the Epstein class, that whole thing, it's a class warfare playbook.
And so it's, hey, we are the working class.
We are the forgotten middle.
We're the middle class.
And we are raising a challenge as people that are frustrated about the economy against the fat cats.
And it's not a golden age, but a gilded age.
And obviously, what's deeply related to this is corruption.
The rich and powerful are scamming us.
The Trump government's a scam.
And while they get rich, we suffer.
That's clearly the playbook.
And that's what you hear in Texas.
And that's what you hear in Maine.
And that's what you heard from Spanberger and Momdani.
And that's going to be the playbook in 26.
And it's like I said, if you're a Trump supporter, you love the state of the union because you're there for the slop.
You're there for the theatrics.
You're there for the pep rally.
You're there for the soaring, half-baked patriot rhetoric.
You're there for that kind of stuff.
And you're on the team already.
But for everybody else, look, if you're one of the average people tuning in and you're not aligned or not affiliated and you think the economy's not doing well, what do you get from that state of the union versus what you get from the Democrat response?
And the same even goes for ICE.
Trump had some powerful moments related to law and order about Irina Zarutska and the illegal aliens and all that kind of stuff.
But the public sentiment has turned against ICE.
And the public supports the border enforcement, but support for interior removals is slipping.
Support for ICE is slipping.
So playing up this angle about the Fourth Amendment and they don't have a warrant and this kind of stuff, you can see how, you know, maybe that's not, I don't know that people are so ideologically into that, but it's, it gets the job done pushing back against Trump on illegal aliens.
So, you know, I don't think this was a really successful state of the union.
I don't know how many people that's really winning over.
And here's the thing.
You have to think about it in terms of what the goal is here.
Republicans need to be playing on offense because they're down.
You know, they're way behind.
Everyone knows that.
With the midterms coming up, the betting markets show the Democrats are favored to win.
The polling is very bad for Trump.
Approval rating is lower than Trump's first term at this point in time, lower than Biden at this point in his administration.
So if you're the Republicans, you're behind.
And you have a huge gap to make up in terms of public support and perception.
So you need to really bring it.
And you need every trick that you have.
I don't think they really attacked the affordability issue effectively.
I don't even know that there was a coherent vision there.
And I don't even think it was very likable.
This culture war stuff, I think, is wearing thin on a lot of people.
The partisan political stuff, it seems that as time goes on, whoever plays more into that, maybe it's more of a weakness now than it was a few years ago.
So, I don't know.
I don't think it was very successful, but I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.
We'll have to see what the response is.
I haven't even gotten a chance to see what Twitter has to say about it.
I'm sort of curious.
Maybe we'll check out the timeline a little bit.
Let me pull up Twitter and we'll just see if we have any live takes here.
It's always hard, though, because this is just from the general audience.
You get people like this, Reverend Jordan Wells.
The Democrats are scheming.
The black people are not apes.
That was a funny moment.
I totally forgot about that.
Yeah, see, this is what I'm talking about.
I don't think this is going to play well.
And to me, that is, I think the Democrats are going to take that and turn that into a layup, you know?
But maybe I'm being overly critical.
All right.
Well, we're going to get into the super chats.
Then we'll wrap this up.
It's been a long night.
We'll take a look.
We'll see what we got here.
I don't think we have too many.
Usually when I do a stream like this, it's not, it's not a ton of super chats.
And then he said, no, no, debate Haas because he knows he's an idiot.
That's honestly the most humiliating thing of all.
Not only is he stupid, he knows he's stupid.
That's why he won't debate.
Just look, you ask him, define communism.
He can't even define it.
He knows nothing about it.
I met him in person.
I have just some random friend.
He schooled Jackson Hinkle on communism.
Guy has no idea what he's doing.
Also, he's not even allowed in the country.
He's not even allowed in the.
So of course he wants to fight.
He wants to fight in Burkina Faso.
He wants to fight in Yemen with his brown-oid friends.
He wants to go fight in the Middle East with all the fucking towelheads and third worlders to cheer him on because he's not even allowed in the country because he's a fucking traitor.
So he can choke.
He's a fucking traitor to our country.
And he got raped by Shabbos Kestenbaum of all people.
Totally mobbed by the Jew that's suing Harvard.
It was insane.
So anyway, I'll do the debate.
But why am I going to travel outside of America because you're a traitor, scum piece of shit?
And what?
You want to bring in all the brown communists to cheer you on?
You should learn about the Albanian Highlander tribes who remain Catholic and about Jared Castro with the Pope called the athlete of Christ instead of calling us non-white and mislabeling us Slavs.
One's perspective on Epstein changes when they find out Virginia Jufri, Haley Robson, and other self-anointed victims did what they accused Gaylene Maxwell of doing.
Yeah, that's just a stupid thing to care about, in my opinion.
Like, when we talk about reindustrializing, we're not really talking about textiles.
We're not talking about, do we want to have sweatshops and garment factories?
I mean, maybe.
But if you're going to do that, it's going to cost more money.
When I say we want to bring back American manufacturing, I mean we should make steel and we should make ships and we should make auto parts and we should have workshops and factories.
I don't necessarily mean we'd need to make every t-shirt, every graphic t-shirt.
Because the whole idea of industrial policy is that some industries are better to have than others.
And it's obvious which ones are better.
If you make missiles, well, that's a good industry to have.
If you make cars, that's a good industry to have.
Semiconductors, chips, these are good industries to have.
These are important industries and they are superior to other industries.
Textiles are pretty low on that list.
You know, so that was always the most annoying thing.
It's not made in America.
Most of it, I believe we almost did all made in America for many years, but then people complain about the cost and it's like, okay, well, you can't have it always.
The problem with Trump is that he's been so disappointing, but he produces good at moments like Donite Soda where he gives you just a little bit of hope.
Just as zero MS Base Cowboy sent $20 talking about the cost of living is rich coming from the spook bitch who put a tax on all forms of delivery, raised the capital gains tax, and added around 15 other state taxes.
Elyssa Lotkin was the Democrat response to the Sota last year.
She is another first-year Jewish female.
Going up sent $20.
Would you rather have Easter European immigrants to assimilate and become fully Americanized law-abiding citizens, ultimately increasing the white population?
Or would you rather have Pajits invade America and shit everywhere?