Trump goads 'crazy' hecklers in longest State of the Union ever - The Times

President Trump delivered the longest State of the Union address in history as he looked to kick-start the Republicans’ midterms campaign by declaring the United States under his leadership “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before”.

In a speech lasting an hour and 48 minutes, Trump insisted the economy was performing well and sought to draw a dividing line on immigration and the culture wars with Democrats, about half of whom boycotted the speech.

Nearly two thirds of the TV audience, which skewed towards Republican viewers, expressed at least a “somewhat positive” reaction, according to snap polling by CNN. The 38 per cent who were “very positive” was a few points lower than for Trump’s address to Congress last year and on a par with President Biden’s ratings for his last address in 2024.

• Sign up for The Times’s weekly US newsletter

Trump veered sharply between moments of fervent patriotic celebration that united members of Congress in applause and highly partisan accusations and challenges designed to trap Democrats into looking awkward.

“You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up,” Trump taunted when they ignored his call for everyone to get to their feet for the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens. Not illegal aliens.”

After they also remained immobile during applause for banning schools from secretly helping children change gender, he said: “Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy, I’m telling you. They’re crazy.”

Stephen Miller, his chief immigration adviser and leading speechwriter, underlined the electoral point of including this provocation in the speech, posting: “The entire Democrat Party disqualified itself from government service in this one exchange. Nothing like it in US history.”

More jarring contrasts were reflected in Trump’s guests, who included the victorious Team USA men’s ice hockey team — but not the women’s gold-medal-winning team, which politely turned down his invitation. Trump’s phone call to the men at the Winter Olympics in Milan went viral after he joked that he would now have to invite the women.

• Don’t punish the US men’s hockey team for being patriotic

Several families were present whose relatives had been killed by people who were in the United States illegally. But after introducing the grieving parents of a Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump falsely said that the accused local man “came in through open borders”.

Trump’s popularity has fallen since his inauguration last year and Republicans face a challenging set of midterm elections in November. They are expected to lose the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate.

Yet the president shrugged off poor polling and last week’s Supreme Court reversal of his core tariff policy as he appeared energised by clashes with outraged Democrats, some of whom jeered him.

• Sketch: Trump forced to talk about affordability in punishing Pilates class

As he approached the podium, Trump made a point of shaking hands with the four Supreme Court justices who attended, including three — John Roberts, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett — who joined the majority to strike down tariffs.

He later vowed to continue with “country-saving” tariffs under a different method and criticised last week’s “disappointing” and “unfortunate” ruling. “Congressional action will not be necessary,” he said, without elaborating.

The speech began with the Democratic congressman Al Green staging a protest against Trump for the second year in a row, holding a sign in the president’s face as he walked down the aisle that read “black people aren’t apes” — a reference to a recent video shared by the president on social media comparing the Obamas to monkeys. Green was escorted out.

Trump, 79, in reference to a fraud scandal in Minnesota, said that “Somali pirates” had “ransacked” the state. Ilhan Omar, a left-wing Democratic congresswoman from Minneapolis and a Somali-American, shouted: “That’s a lie!”

She repeatedly accused Trump of having “killed Americans” — a reference to the shootings by immigration agents of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis — and was joined by Rashida Tlaib, a fellow left-winger sitting beside her.

Tlaib heckled Trump moments later, saying: “How about those Epstein files?” Prominent victims of the paedophile financier and those affected by his crimes, including Virginia Giuffre’s brother Sky Roberts, and his wife Amanda, watched from the audience.

There were glaring omissions of various topics that continue to dominate both the news and Trump’s thinking — notably no mention of ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency widely criticised for its heavy-handed tactics, nor of the Epstein files, nor of the White House ballroom which Trump aims to build on the demolished East Wing, nor his takeover of the nation’s top arts venue, which his hand-picked board renamed the Trump Kennedy Center.

Trump claimed he inherited a “stagnant economy” but now it was “roaring like never before”. However growth was 2.2 per cent last year, lower than every year under Biden.

• Trump proclaims a ‘golden age’ — but risks falling into Biden trap

Trump said he had commitments for $18 trillion of investment but not even the White House website agrees, putting the pledges at $9.7 trillion. He announced that the federal government would add up to $1,000 into pensions of non-federal workers without an employer plan — a scheme that was passed into law in 2022 under Biden.

Abigail Spanberger, the recently elected Virginia governor who delivered the Democratic response, said: “He lied, he scapegoated and he distracted, and he offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges, many of which he is actively making worse. We did not hear the truth from our president.”

Trump delivered an ominous warning to Iran amid the largest US military build-up in the Middle East since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, teasing the possibility of regime change as he accused the Shia clerics who have run the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution of spreading “nothing but terrorism and death and hate”. He accused Iran of building missiles that could soon reach the US and lambasted Tehran for not renouncing its “sinister” nuclear ambitions.

• How true are Trump’s claims? His presidency in numbers

“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy, but one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number-one sponsor of terror — which they are by far — to have a nuclear weapon,” he said.

His audience included America’s top general, Dan “Raizin” Caine, who is said to have informed Trump of his doubts about war and the military’s readiness for a protracted conflict.

Iranian officials dismissed Trump’s claims that they are working to build a nuclear weapon, accusing him of trying to “repeat a lie often enough until it becomes the truth”.