There’s something almost theatrical about watching a president stand before a divided nation and declare, essentially, that everything is going according to plan, according to BBC News. Last night, Donald Trump did exactly that and he did it for nearly two hours, making it one of the longest State of the Union addresses in modern history.
The chamber was packed, the cameras were rolling, and Trump was in his element.
“An Economic Turnaround for the Ages”
Trump opened with the economy, as he almost always does, and he didn’t hold back. He called it an “economic turnaround for the ages”, a phrase that landed to thunderous applause on one side of the aisle and stony silence on the other.
And here’s the thing; the numbers aren’t entirely wrong. Inflation did cool to 2.4% in January 2026, the lowest it’s been since May 2021. Gas prices are down sharply about 7.5% and that’s real relief for real families filling up their tanks every week. Foreign investment has been flowing in too, with $151 billion in new foreign direct investment recorded in 2024.
But it’s not quite the clean victory lap Trump painted. Core inflation, the stubborn kind that excludes food and energy, is still sitting at 2.5%, above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. And while $151 billion in FDI sounds impressive, economists are quick to note it still trails historical highs. The economy is recovering, yes. But the story is messier and slower than the president let on.
A Warning to Tehran
Perhaps the most charged moment of the night came when Trump turned to Iran. His tone shifted less celebratory, more steely as he called for diplomacy while simultaneously drawing a hard line against Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
With talks in Geneva currently stalled and Oman serving as a quiet go-between, the gap between the two sides remains wide. The U.S. wants a full stop to uranium enrichment. Iran says it has every right to peaceful nuclear technology. And hovering over all of it is the shadow of last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities, a wound that hasn’t healed and a tension that hasn’t cooled.
Trump’s message was clear enough: talk, or face consequences. Whether Tehran is listening is another matter entirely.
The Tariff Setback He Couldn’t Ignore
There was one moment Trump couldn’t spin into a win, and he knew it. Last week, the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping emergency tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, determining that the president had overstepped congressional authority. The fallout is significant, potentially $175 billion in refunds and real tremors running through global trade agreements.
Trump called the ruling “very unfortunate.” That’s putting it mildly. For an administration that has staked much of its economic identity on tough trade postures, the decision is a genuine blow and one whose full consequences are still being worked out.
The Other Side of the Story
When Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger stepped up to deliver the Democratic response, she wasn’t pulling punches. She accused Trump of offering a glossy performance while sidestepping the genuine struggles Americans face crime, division, economic anxiety.
Fact-checkers were busy through the night. On crime, for instance, Trump implied things were getting worse under his predecessors but homicide rates actually fell 21% in 2025, dropping to roughly 4.0 per 100,000 people, the lowest level in over a century. His claims of “ending wars” were similarly complicated ceasefires in Gaza and the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict involved numerous international actors, and several conflicts are still very much unresolved.
The Numbers Behind the Curtain
Perhaps the most sobering context for the entire evening came not from the speech itself, but from the polls surrounding it. Only 38% of Americans currently approve of Trump’s leadership. Fifty seven percent say the union isn’t strong. Sixty percent feel the country is worse off than it was.
Those are not the numbers of a nation feeling triumphant.
And yet inside that chamber, in front of those cameras, Trump performed with the confidence of someone holding a full house. CBS polling showed 76% of viewers approved of the speech in the moment. On X, supporters called it unifying and historic. Critics called it a spectacle disconnected from reality.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
Two hours. One speech. A country still deeply, genuinely split on almost everything.
Trump’s State of the Union was bold, ambitious, and delivered with the kind of unshakeable self-assurance that his supporters love and his critics find maddening. Some of what he said was grounded in real progress. Some of it stretched the truth past its comfortable limits. And some of it the Supreme Court ruling, the stalled Iran talks, the stubborn polling numbers reminded everyone watching that governing is harder than speechmaking.
The theater was impressive. The plot, as always, is still being written.
