![\"Donald](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/738fe2f3be538d1f3e9456d16d3615fd.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nDonald Trump is not known for brevity \u2014 but even by his standards, this speech was a whopper.<\/p>\n
The president gave the longest State of the Union speech in US history, delivering a 108-minute address to shatter Bill Clinton’s 89-minute record.<\/p>\n
Here are some of the key takeaways.<\/p>\n
Trump stuck to the cost-of-living script<\/p>\n
Trump is known for ignoring the teleprompter and veering off on tangents when he speaks.<\/p>\n
But his aides who have been encouraging him to stay on message would probably have been pleased with how well he stuck to the script.<\/p>\n
He hammered a key theme, which was what he called a “turnaround” in America’s fortunes since his election.<\/p>\n
And as the White House had flagged, he dedicated a significant portion of his speech to the economy and living costs.<\/p>\n
He did not do what he has done many times before and dismiss the affordability crisis as a hoax peddled by Democrats.<\/p>\n
He instead announced some measures he said would address it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Republicans show enthusiastic support for Donald Trump at the Capitol. (Reuters: Evelyn Hockstein)<\/p>\n
One was a promise that the government would contribute to the retirement funds of more workers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another was a policy to force tech companies to “build their own power plants” to prevent the AI wave from pushing up energy prices.<\/p>\n
But whether those future pledges excite Americans who are feeling the pinch now is a big question.<\/p>\n
And polling shows a large chunk of them are unconvinced by his standard insistence, which he repeated in his speech, that life is cheaper now than under the Biden administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Democrats also made affordability central to their message.<\/p>\n
Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger delivered the party’s official response.<\/p>\n
She rhetorically asked Americans: “Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family?<\/p>\n
“We all know the answer is no. He’s enriching himself, his family, his friends. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented.”<\/p>\n
Iran ‘wants a deal’ but will not say the ‘sacred words’<\/p>\n
As the US kept sending more military assets to the Middle East, there had been a lot of interest in what Trump would say about Iran.<\/p>\n
Last Thursday, he said the world would know if he was able to make a deal with Iran “in the next, probably, 10 days”.<\/p>\n
Five days later, he did not give a much clearer indication of his intentions. He briefly laid out something of a case for a possible future attack, though it was light on detail.<\/p>\n
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After lauding the success of last year’s “Operation Midnight Hammer” strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, he warned that the Islamic regime was “again pursuing their sinister ambitions”.<\/p>\n
“They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those sacred words ‘we will never have a nuclear weapon’.<\/p>\n
“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.<\/p>\n
“And no nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on Earth.”<\/p>\n
Hockey men got a heroes’ welcome \u2013 and cheered the absent women<\/p>\n
Trump’s invitation to the US men’s hockey team had already made headlines, thanks to the viral video of his phone call with the players after their big Winter Olympics win.<\/p>\n
Both Trump and the team were criticised over the president’s joke \u2013 which the players appeared to enjoy \u2013 that he would “have to” invite the women’s team or risk impeachment<\/a>.<\/p>\n In his State of the Union address, Trump delivered a comedy bit about American “winners”, then presented the hockey team to the crowd like he was a variety show host bringing out a superstar guest.<\/p>\n “Here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud,” Trump said.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n The women’s team \u2013 who also won gold \u2013 turned down their invitation, apparently because of “timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments”.<\/p>\n But Trump said they would “soon be coming to the White House” \u2013 and the men’s players made sure to applaud.\u00a0<\/p>\n Supreme Court justices were not scared off by Trump’s insults<\/p>\n After six Supreme Court justices voted to invalidate many of Trump’s tariffs last week<\/a>, Trump blasted them as unpatriotic “fools and lapdogs” whose families should be ashamed.<\/p>\n They were now “barely invited” to his State of the Union speech, he said.<\/p>\n But three of the six justices who ruled against him still showed up: Chief Justice John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett (a Trump appointee) and Elena Kagan.\u00a0<\/p>\n Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who Trump praised for writing a dissenting opinion that argued his tariffs were legal, was also there.<\/p>\n It was the same group of four justices who attended Trump’s address to Congress last year.<\/p>\n Trump shook hands with all of them, though he did not offer Chief Justice Roberts the effusive thanks he gave him last year.<\/p>\n During his speech, as the justices were seated right in front of him, Trump talked about the “Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement” in his tariff policy.<\/p>\n Loading…<\/p>\n He went on to say his cancelled tariffs would “remain in place under alternative legal statutes”, and they would be “even stronger than before”.<\/p>\n There were protests inside and outside the chamber<\/p>\n In past years, presidents have faced a fair serve of heckling from their critics in the chamber.<\/p>\n This year, the Democrats’ House leader, Hakeem Jeffries, advised his party colleagues to avoid getting rowdy. Their options, he said, were to “either attend with silent defiance or not to attend and send a message to Donald Trump in that fashion”.<\/p>\n Demonstrators donned inflatable frog costumes for the “State of the Swamp” protest event. (Reuters: Leah Millis)<\/p>\n So there was plenty of defiant silence on the Democratic side of the chamber, including from victims of Jeffrey Epstein who were invited as guests of party members.<\/p>\n Some Democrats wore badges bearing slogans like “f*** ICE”. Most sat stony-faced while their Republican counterparts repeatedly leapt to their feet to cheer.<\/p>\n But the event wasn’t completely devoid of raucous protest.<\/p>\n Congressman Al Green was kicked out, for the second year in a row<\/a>, after he held up a protest sign that said “Black people aren’t apes” \u2014 a reference to Trump’s recent social media depiction of the Obamas<\/a>.<\/p>\n Later, when Trump criticised Democrats for not standing and applauding during parts of his speech, some did heckle.\u00a0<\/p>\n “You’ve have killed Americans,” Democrat Ilhan Omar yelled when Trump asked members to stand if they believed their first duty was to protect Americans over “illegal aliens”.<\/p>\n Al Green was evicted from Donald Trump’s address to Congress for a second consecutive year. (Reuters: Kenny Holston)<\/p>\n![\"People](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/3bf378a0c519eec89c8024bc0450c6bc.jpeg\")
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