White House staff have been preparing for weeks. Lawmakers cheered and jeered at them. Critics analyze every word. But what is said in the State of the Union address rarely leaves a lasting impression.
Analysis of President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union Address
USA TODAY’s Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page takes a closer look at President Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address.
WASHINGTON – He declared America is winning again. He issued a stern warning to Iran. He scolded Democrats and called them crazy.
But years from now, when viewed through the lens of history, President Donald Trump’s latest State of the Union address will join the ranks of most other presidential speeches.
Like them, it will probably be forgotten.
Despite all the spectacle surrounding the State of the Union, few presidential speeches are memorable. Presidential aides have been preparing for several weeks. Lawmakers cheer and jeer them. Experts analyze all those words.
But most State of the Union addresses are forgotten as soon as they are delivered, remembered only by the speechwriters who spent weeks coming up with the right applause lines and phrasing.
Jon Favreau, who served as chief speechwriter for five of Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses, wrote in X that the State of the Union is “a relic of a speech in which even 24 hours of attention meant little. And the people who were paying attention tended to be politically engaged and already made up minds.” “This is true in times of successful speeches and true in times of disaster.”
Don’t expect President Trump’s remarks to be an exception.
President Trump’s speech to a joint session of the House and Senate on February 24 was strikingly similar to others he has given during his campaign and since the start of his second term last year. He praised tax cuts passed last year, saying they turned the economy around and attacked immigrants who enter the country illegally.
He announced a “war on fraud” led by Vice President J.D. Vance in response to a major investigation into allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs. He also called for a new federal law that would prohibit states from issuing driver’s licenses to people in the country illegally.
If President Trump’s speech is memorable in any way, it’s probably because of its length. At one hour and 47 minutes, it was the longest State of the Union address in history.
“Overall, it was a pretty standard State of the Union address, even if it was a little longer than normal,” said Chapman Lakaway, an expert on presidential and political communications and chair of the political science department at Radford University in Virginia.
“President Trump has claimed credit for many of the things Republicans are trying to do this year, set the policy agenda for this year, and launched several attacks on Democrats to establish campaign talking points,” Lakaway said. However, “there was nothing really groundbreaking or new in the president’s speech.”
Most State of the Union addresses fail to leave a lasting mark because of the way the president uses them. With Congress and millions of television viewers watching, presidents seek to seize the moment by announcing new policies and programs, urging lawmakers to support their policies and touting their administration’s successes.
“The State of the Union address, by its very nature, is wide-ranging and covers a wide range of topics,” said Michael Waldman, who was Bill Clinton’s chief speechwriter and is now president and CEO of the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
At worst, it could be so volatile within baseball that it could seem like, in Waldman’s words, “an eloquent laundry list.”
“The whole point of State of the Union addresses over the last 150 years has been to set some kind of agenda, to try to get Congress to take up certain important projects that the president wants to pass or certain items on the Congressional calendar,” Lakaway said.
Rackaway said it worked when the president and Congress worked together as equal branches of government.
But partisan rifts are now so great that “Congress is unable to perform even some of its basic functions,” such as passing a budget, Lakaway said.
In this era of presidential dominance, the State of the Union address is “primarily political theater,” Lakaway said. “The president just announced that he’s going to go it alone on what he’s going to do.”
memorable speech
The most memorable State of the Union addresses aren’t necessarily filled with soaring prose, but rather the ones that are inspirational, emotional, and provide unexpected moments.
Like President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1941 speech, which spoke of the four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and worship, freedom from want and fear, and warned against isolationism in the face of threats from the Axis powers during World War II.
Or Lyndon Johnson in 1964, speaking just weeks after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, imploring Congress to continue Kennedy’s plan “not out of sadness or pity, but because they are right.”
Most presidents aim for an upbeat tone, assuring Americans that things are hot in this country. Gerald Ford abandoned his optimistic, upbeat prose in 1975 and spoke instead with brutal honesty to a nation suffering from high inflation and high unemployment.
“The state of the union is not good,” he said.
Clinton used her 1996 State of the Union address to pivot to the political center. Democrats struggled against Republicans in the midterm congressional elections two years ago. As Clinton gears up for her re-election campaign, she wanted to make it clear to Americans that she understands their concerns about the bloated federal bureaucracy.
“The era of big government is over,” he declared.
Later that year, he became the first Democratic president in 60 years to win a second term.
Several other State of the Union addresses are also remembered as performances.
In 1982, President Ronald Reagan began a new tradition by inviting a special guest to sit with First Lady Nancy Reagan in the House Gallery during the State of the Union address. President Reagan’s guest was Larry Skutnik, a government official who jumped into the cold waters of the Potomac River to save a drowning woman after a plane crash. In his speech, President Reagan praised Skutnik as an example of “the greatest American spirit of heroism.”
It was a theatrical moment for a president who was a movie actor in a previous life.
The image was so powerful that even future presidents took notice. Presidents now routinely invite special guests to the State of the Union.
President Trump’s guests at this year’s speech included Erica Kirk, the widow of murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The U.S. men’s hockey team just won the gold medal at the 2026 Winter Olympics by defeating Canada. They are the parents of Andrew Wolf, a National Guardsman who was shot and seriously injured in an ambush in Washington, D.C., last November, and Sarah Beckstrom, a 20-year-old National Guardsman who was killed in the same attack.
Trump, a talented showman who hosted a reality television show before entering politics, announced during his speech that he would award Purple Hearts to two injured National Guardsmen and award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, to men’s hockey goaltender Connor Hellebuyck. He also awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to one of the pilots involved in the U.S. operation that raided the residence of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in January.
President Trump also admitted that he had always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but said he would not be allowed to give it to himself.
Bottled water, shiny lips, and “shredded” truth
The most notable State of the Union address delivered during President Trump’s first term is remembered not for what he said, but for what happened afterwards. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, seated behind President Trump on the podium during his 2020 speech, was so enraged by Trump’s attacks on the Democratic Party that she stood up from her chair at the conclusion, grabbed a copy of her speech, and tore it in two.
“He shredded the truth,” she later said. “That’s why I tore his speech to shreds.” Stopping the speech “was the polite thing to do given the alternatives,” she said.
Parties that are no longer in power will be given a chance to respond after the president’s State of the Union address. Like presidential statements, rebuttals are usually remembered only when something goes wrong.
Marco Rubio, then a Republican senator from Florida and now President Trump’s secretary of state, was mercilessly mocked and impersonated on Saturday Night Live when he reached for a water bottle and virtually disappeared from the camera frame during a live broadcast of the Republican rebuttal to Obama’s 2013 speech.
Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who delivered the Democratic Party’s response to President Trump’s 2018 State of the Union address, is remembered not for his words but for his glossy lips. Some viewers were convinced the young up-and-comer was drooling on live TV. But Kennedy said she only applied Chapstick to her dry lips before the broadcast.
While Trump’s speech is certainly a footnote in history, it’s not entirely his fault.
Waldman said Clinton began her speech with key points she knew would garner applause from Democrats and Republicans.
But Americans are politically divided, and what was once common courtesy during the State of the Union address has now been replaced by partisan violence and interruptions.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, then a Republican congresswoman from Georgia, taunted President Joe Biden and called him a “liar” during a 2024 speech.
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was accused of getting up from his seat, waving his cane and shouting in protest after being ejected from the House during President Trump’s speech last year. This year, President Trump was reprimanded again for holding up a sign that read “Black People Are Not Apes” just minutes into his speech. This is a rebuke to Trump, who posted a video on social media depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys.
More than 80 Democrats chose to skip President Trump’s speech entirely this year.
“We’re so divided right now, I don’t know how any president on either side of politics can reluctantly get the other side to say, ‘Oh, that was a great speech,'” Lakaway said.
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. He is a veteran reporter who has covered the White House and Congress. Follow him on X: @mcollinsNEWS
