{"id":499442,"date":"2026-02-25T22:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499442\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T22:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T22:21:11","slug":"americans-want-a-new-course-donald-trump-vows-to-stay-the-old-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/499442\/","title":{"rendered":"Americans want a new course. Donald Trump vows to stay the old one"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday.Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

To begin his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Donald Trump<\/a> looked subdued. Maybe he\u2019d seen the NPR report earlier in the day<\/a> saying his Justice Department was hiding files in the Jeffrey Epstein case that potentially incriminated him. If true, it would be a cover-up story of Watergate magnitude. <\/p>\n

But soon, Mr. Trump\u2019s bravado was back, and it was the sport of hockey, of all things, that cued it and signalled the theme of his speech: American greatness and his own magnificence. <\/p>\n

His voice suddenly became a passionate holler as he talked about how the country was winning, winning, winning, and how a great illustration of this was the Olympic hockey team\u2019s amazing gold-medal triumph.<\/p>\n

To shouts of \u201cU.S.A! U.S.A!\u201d the players entered the chamber<\/a>. Mr. Trump spent several minutes lauding them and then, for another hour-and-a-half, employed his snake-oil selling talents to the max in putting on a show that exalted the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a dead country,\u201d he charged. But \u201cour nation is back! \u2026The economy is roaring! \u2026 It\u2019s a turnaround for the ages!\u201d<\/p>\n

In a marathon State of the Union address, President Donald Trump ticked through claimed victories, insisting the U.S. is ‘winning so much’ and while blasting ‘crazy’ Democrats, even as his approval slips.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press<\/p>\n

Despite polls showing him at a low point, Mr. Trump was cocky, arrogant, energized. He commanded the podium. He looked durable. He has always been durable \u2013 durable as a cockroach.<\/p>\n

He skilfully interspersed his address with shoutouts and medal awards to Americans who had performed heroic deeds, while frequently denouncing Democrats for not joining in the countless standing ovations. The Democrats, as he indelicately put it, were \u201csick people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech drew rave reviews from the MAGA faithful. But with his support at only 41 per cent,<\/a> it was expected he might offer new policy pronouncements as opposed to mainly a defence of his record. He didn\u2019t. There was no new sense of direction. With Americans dissatisfied with the course, Mr. Trump vowed to stay on it.<\/p>\n

Tariffs<\/a>, the driver of his economic agenda, are very unpopular. But he held firm on them, even though his \u201cemergency\u201d tariffs were struck down by the Supreme Court last week \u2013 a decision that gave him an off-ramp that he is not taking. Instead, he held to his cockeyed view that most countries \u201cwere ripping us off so badly.\u201d <\/p>\n

David Shribman: Trump\u2019s State of the Union address was a celebration of one man\u2019s achievements<\/a><\/p>\n

There was no addressing the deportation excesses that have seen him lose majority support on immigration, the issue that\u2019s been critical to his political successes.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump had legitimate points to boast about, including the roaring stock market, and reduced crime rates. He made the most of them, particularly the closing-off of the southern border to drugs and \u201cillegal aliens.\u201d He asked everyone to stand up who agreed with the fundamental principle that \u201cThe first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.\u201d Democrats stayed in their seats. \u201cYou should be ashamed of yourselves,\u201d Mr. Trump scolded.<\/p>\n

Lies, fabrications, wild distortions are so common to his speeches that they are hardly even news any more: He just gets away with them. His State of the Union was true to form. He claimed his tax cuts were the largest in history. They are not even in the top five.<\/a> On the other hand, his tariffs amount to a tax increase that might be very highly ranked.<\/p>\n

On inflation, he serenaded himself for authoring a remarkable turnaround. In fact, Joe Biden\u2019s administration had lowered inflation from 9.1 per cent in 2022 to 3 per cent when Mr. Trump took office; a year later, Mr. Trump had it down to 2.4 per cent. On jobs, Mr. Trump boasted that more people were employed than at any time in American history. But Mr. Biden could have said the same thing during his term: It\u2019s a function of population growth.<\/p>\n

Cathal Kelly: The State of the Union was a zoo \u2013 and Team USA the monkeys<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump also repeated his claim that he has ended eight wars. It\u2019s true only if you count ceasefires as endings and skirmishes as wars. It was more justifiable for him to take credit for the removal of Venezuelan dictator Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, his destruction of Iran\u2019s nuclear installations, his peace-plan work in Gaza.<\/p>\n

In so far as the speech was about doubling down on what he has done instead of offering change, it was good news for the Democrats. They are well positioned to win back a majority in the House of Representatives, if not the Senate, in the midterms.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s if the elections are legitimately conducted and results rightly heeded. It\u2019s a big if. In the predator President\u2019s speech, there was an ominous line referencing the Democrats that didn\u2019t get much notice. \u201cThe only way they can get elected is to cheat,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd we have to stop it!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address on Tuesday.Pool\/Getty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":499443,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-499442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499442"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499442\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/499443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}