With chaos, trampling on civil and human rights and escalating global tensions marking the first year of his second term, President Donald Trump strode into the House chamber and delivered the longest State of the Union address in American history, insisting he has overseen what he called a “turnaround for the ages.”
“President Trump’s State of the Union address showed a stark contrast between his public promises to lower health care costs and his actual policies of deliberate decisions to raise premiums,” Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, said in a statement released after the speech. “We must look at what the president has done, rather than what he said.”
Trump’s remarks stretched one hour and 47 minutes.
He introduced very few new policy proposals, instead leaning into grievance and spectacle. He berated Democrats as “crazy” for refusing to stand or applaud his agenda on crime, immigration and the economy, and toggled between celebratory language about American achievement and graphic depictions of violence and conflict at home and abroad.
He insisted the nation is “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever,” even as polls show declining confidence in his stewardship of the economy and widespread concern about rising costs.
Wright said the president’s real health care agenda is reflected not in “the few sentences in a speech,” but in “the massive Medicaid cuts he signed into the law, and Congress’ deliberate decision to double premiums for those who buy coverage as individuals, costing consumers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The Families USA director explained the administration and Congress allowed enhanced premium tax credits to expire, made historic cuts to Medicaid and are “pushing and pricing millions of Americans off of coverage.”
He also critiqued the president’s plans for health savings accounts and the cost of medications.
“We support the specific focus on prescription drug prices,” he said, “ but it’s wildly out-of-touch to say a website of coupons of existing programs means we got it done.”
Mayor Quinton Lucas of Kansas City, president of the Democratic Mayors Association, rejected Trump’s framing on crime and the economy.
“Tonight, Americans heard a lot of talk. Here are the facts. Violent crime is down to record lows across the country,” Lucas said. “That progress didn’t happen because of rhetoric in Washington — it happened because mayors funded law enforcement, invested in prevention, and implemented strategies that work.”
He also noted that Trump should be working with mayors, “instead of attacking cities,” in order to achieve more progress .
Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates, said Trump’s claims of a booming economy ring hollow for working women.
“Tonight, President Trump stood before Congress and delivered what working women across this country have come to expect: bogus claims about affordability, a supposedly booming economy with more Americans working than ever before,” Farrell said.
She pointed to widening gender wage gaps, women leaving the workforce and cuts to childcare funding. “This is not an accident. This is intentional policy,” Farrell said. She concluded, “The president can stand before Congress and call this progress. Working women call it what it is: A war on women’s progress.”
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chair Ken Martin went further.
“At the State of the Union, a president with a 36% approval rating spent 107 desperate minutes trying to convince us he’s good at his job. Yet by every measure, he is a stunning failure, and Americans are no longer buying what he’s selling,” Martin said.
He said Trump “promised to lower prices on Day One. Instead, families paid an estimated $2,120 more last year,” and accused the president of ducking transparency, “building a ballroom, partying with the elites, and selling out American families to serve billionaires.”
The DNC chair concluded: “Costs, corruption, and chaos. Donald Trump has taken the State of our Union to an all-time low.”
Congressional Leaders Respond
United States Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania (D) delivered the Working Families Party response and opened with a blunt assessment.
“So let’s start with a simple truth: What we are witnessing from our government is authoritarianism,” Lee said.
She said Trump is “gaslighting us” and warned that “Our country is in crisis.”
Lee accused the president of cutting thousands of federal jobs, pushing the nation “to the brink of wars in the Middle East and South America,” and stripping environmental and workplace protections.
“Trump promised to lower our costs, instead he gave $1 trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% while cutting your Medicaid and SNAP by $1.1 trillion dollars,” she said, adding that in Pennsylvania alone 300,000 people are projected to lose Medicaid within the next year. “No matter how hard we work, we continue to struggle. That is the real state of our union.”
The Pennsylvania congresswoman said the address “wasn’t a list of accomplishments. It was more like an obituary for the country working people built and a celebration for the billionaires who want to strip it for parts.”
The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) also rejected Trump’s assessment of the nation’s condition.
“Tonight, President Donald Trump delivered his State of the Union address, claiming that our country is ‘bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever.’ But for Black Americans, the reality behind these blatantly racist lies, disrespect, and outright distortions tells a very different story,” the caucus said in a statement.
The CBC cited polling showing 75% of Black Americans disapprove of the president’s job performance and only 23% approve of his handling of the economy. It noted that Black unemployment reached 8.3% and warned that cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, along with attacks on the Affordable Care Act, have put more than 1.1 million Black Americans at risk of losing coverage.
“The Congressional Black Caucus will continue to hold the line against the administration’s committed efforts to decimate our economy and undermine the American dream,” the CBC declared.
For Trump, the speech was a forceful defense of his record. For his critics, it was further evidence that rhetoric and reality are moving in opposite directions.
“Our country is in crisis,” Lee said.