Trump forced to talk about affordability in punishing Pilates class - The Times

“These people are crazy!” cried President Trump, jabbing a finger at Democratic members of Congress who were not standing up for one of his applause lines. “I’m telling ya, they are crazy.”

Republicans knew when it was time to stand up and clap: that time was at the end of every sentence. For an hour and a half they were up and down as if they were doing pilates. It was a very long session, a special conditioning and endurance class, this State of the Union speech. Trump had warned everyone that he planned to go on and on. The Democrats sat quite still in their seats for most of it.

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“Boy oh boy,” said Trump, glaring at them. He sounded genuinely bewildered. “We are lucky to have a country with people like this. Democrats are destroying our country but we have stopped it just in the nick of time.” Then the Republicans had to get up again and applaud.

The message for the night, the one that Trump managed to stick to, was that America was now incredibly hot. A total smoke show. “Bigger, better, richer, stronger,” he said. “Our military and police are stacked.” The whole world was swiping right for America.

Foreign leaders, seeing the way the American military captured the president of Venezuela in the dead of night, had been entranced. “I won’t tell you who,” Trump said. “They called me and said: ‘Very impressive.’”

The first lady was now a film star and the murder rate was down. Chicken and butter and hotel rooms were a lot cheaper, he said, as if referring to one blowout weekend with his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr. In Iowa he had witnessed, with his own eyes, someone selling petrol for “one dollar and 85 cents a gallon”, he said.

The Republicans jumped up and applauded the petrol station, or possibly the president for seeing it and telling them about it.

Yes, America was quite the catch. “Bigger and bigger and stronger,” Trump said. Also “hotter”. Trump himself, though, did not look in tip-top shape or at least, he has looked hotter. He gripped the lectern, his hands pale, his shoulders hunched. His hair, that he no longer dyes, was a shapeless silver cloud that floated atop the bronze hillock of his forehead and perhaps there was a problem with the microphone, for occasionally the sweet music of his voice came in gasping, Dylan-like rasps.

It is said that he grows exasperated at his low poll numbers: that he cannot understand it. That he is grumpy at his advisers for making him talk about affordability, rather than about his ballroom, or possible military adventures in the Middle East.

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He certainly sounded furious at Democrats] for bringing it up the whole time. “You caused that problem,” he said. “Their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie. Their policies created the high prices.”

He recounted an imagined conversation with voters who appreciate all that he is doing, whose cup of happiness runneth over. “People are asking me: please, please, please, Mr President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it anymore,” he said. “We’re not used to winning in our country. Until you came along, we’re just always losing. But now we’re winning too much.

“And I say, no, no, no, you’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever. And to prove that point,” he said, speaking over the swelling Republican applause, his voice stretching out into a screech. “To prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud.”

He pointed up into the gallery at the victorious men’s ice hockey team, fresh from triumphing over Canada at the Olympics. Trump had spoken to them all directly after their victory via the phone of his FBI director Kash Patel, who was for some reason there with them in the locker room in Milan, chugging a bottle of beer. Would they care to come to the State of the Union? Trump asked. “It’s the coolest night, it’s the biggest night,” he said.

“I got it boss … I’m f***ing on it,” said the FBI director. “I’m drivin’ the bus, boss.”

• Trump gives longest State of the Union ever: ‘These people are crazy’

The hockey players were his honoured guests; unlike the team of Supreme Court justices, up at the front in their black strip, fresh from a majority of them striking down the legal basis for his beloved tariffs. Trump shook some of their hands on his way to the lectern but scowled at them in his speech. “They got it really wrong,” he said.

John Roberts, the chief justice, stared back at him, not quite able to mask his disapproval. The justices, like the Democrats, had to remain seated: it was more than their jobs were worth. Eventually Trump engaged in a little gotcha moment, no doubt crafted by his adviser Stephen Miller.

“If you agree with this statement then stand up and show your support,” he said. “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

It had the savour of a locker-room call and response, or a drinking game. Sure enough, the Democrats remained seated and Trump looked at them, shocked and appalled.

“Be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” he said. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

At last, with some rhetoric redolent of a Taylor Sheridan television series about Americans taming the boundless frontier and the wild west, Trump finally stood down. After the longest State of the Union in history, it was noted that his schedule for the following morning included two hours of “executive time” followed by a closed-door policy meeting, possibly to get his strength back.