Tuesday night was an incredible night in the United States Capitol. President Trump gave an astonishing, terrific speech at the joint session of Congress, the quasi State of the Union.
The enthusiasm was tremendous. I was invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson, and before the actual address to the joint session of Congress, a meet and greet was held inside his office, and many cabinet secretaries stopped by.
This administration is filled with terrific people. Everybody from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, to the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, to the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick was there. President Trump has put together an amazing team.
Being in the chambers of Congress for the speech was definitely an interesting experience. I use “interesting” because the contrast between enthusiasm and excitement on the Republican side of the aisle, believing America is on the upsurge, and the absolute murderous depression in which Democrats have now sunk themselves could not be starker.
You could feel it. As they filed into the chamber, the Democrats looked like depressed college students who had just finished debating philosophy and smoking pot in their dorm rooms. It was quite an amazing thing. It was just dead on their side of the aisle — not just because they’ve lost the election and no longer control Congress, the Senate, or the White House, but also because they cannot find the thing over which to attack President Trump.
So they decided to bring campus tactics. Several members of the “Squad” showed up wearing pink to protest, to imply Trump hates women. By the way, they refused to applaud for a woman who was brutally injured by a man spiking a volleyball at her.
Some of the Democrats had on hideous jackets with Black Lives Matter regalia upon them. Other Democrats showed up with little placards and signs.
The Democrats acted like puerile spoiled children with no point of opposition. They are a party that is out of control while the Republicans are in lockstep with regard to the Trump agenda.
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Meanwhile, President Trump took the 80% side of every 80/20 issue it was possible to take in the speech, and Democrats were wrong-footed the entire speech.
President Trump spent nearly the entire speech on domestic policy, which is clever and smart.
The American people care much more about domestic policy than they do about foreign policy. I care deeply about foreign policy because I think that foreign policy affects Americans. There’s a massive impact on how Americans live, even if we don’t think about it a lot.
But President Trump understands, on an innate, gut level, that Americans care when he says America First. They don’t think he means 1930s isolationism; what they hear is that American citizens should be taken care of first as a first priority.
And that is inarguable.
President Trump again discussed the issues of which he is clearly the winner. The two biggest issues that he mentioned over and over were illegal immigration and that boys are not girls.
In fact, he spent a great deal of time on the basic proposition that boys are not girls.
I have friends who are Democrats, and I keep asking them the same question: “You know you lost the last election. You didn’t get totally blown out. Republicans only have a very slim majority in the House, a very slim majority in the Senate. President Trump won all the swing states. But it’s not as though he won 360 electoral votes. He didn’t win a 49-state landslide. So why do you guys keep holding onto an issue in which you prove that you are insane? You guys keep saying the trans issue is a small issue. So why do you keep talking?”
When you pick an issue and say a totally loony thing about that issue, it implicates your views on all the other issues. Imagine if I am interviewing to be your accountant, and we have a great interview. But then I very seriously drop the idea that birds are not real, that birds are mythical creatures or actually all robots, even if for only 30 seconds out of our two-hour interview, are you hiring me? The answer, of course, is no, because you now know that I’m insane.
If Democrats choose to take the insane side of what is a clear issue, then they are going to lose. President Trump knows that, and he hammered it time and time again last night.
When President Trump came into the chamber, Republicans were ecstatic — because America is back. The feeling in the room on the Right side of the aisle was absolute enthusiasm. “We’re back baby, we’re going to do this thing.” And on the Left side of the aisle, it looked as though everyone had just taken a cyanide pill.
Early in the speech, Trump did something brilliant. He said he is not going to play the game where the cameras pan back to see one side of the chamber standing and one side sitting, leaving the implication the president is just too divisive. From the onset, he said his intent was to point out that nothing he does or says will ever get these people clapping.
He took the bat right out of their hands. He double-dog-dared Democrats not to clap. He was saying, “I’m going to say a bunch of super-populist stuff right now and watch: Democrats won’t even clap. And that’s why you can’t vote for them in the future. That’s why they don’t deserve power.” A very smart move from the president of the United States.
There were extraordinarily warm moments; he held up an executive order in the middle of the speech establishing and renaming a park in honor of a young girl who was killed by illegal immigrants. He called out somebody in the audience who had just received an acceptance to West Point.
This was President Trump taking it to the next level, a move he is quite good at.
Then, there was the comedy portion of the speech, when Trump started listing the projects where millions of dollars have been wasted. Trump is just an amazing performer. He has comedic timing, which is an unteachable skill. You’ve either got that, or you don’t.
President Trump announced that we had captured an ISIS terrorist who was responsible for the Abbey Gate massacre in which 13 American servicemembers were murdered.
And Democrats sat on their hands.
He made a 13-year-old boy, who has suffered from brain cancer, an honorary member of the Secret Service.
And Democrats sat on their hands.
This is Americana multiplied by a million, and the Democrats sat on their hands looking like they were sucking on lemons.
Aside from any moral and empathetic level, but on a mere pragmatic level, a politically pragmatic level, what were they thinking? Do they like the split-screen of them sitting on their hands?
When people look back on this historical era and wonder how President Trump was reelected, they will have to understand that he was a unique political figure, a colossus striding the American political scene.
There’s just no other way to see it.
The closing of the speech was one of the best closings of any of his speeches. He stated:
We stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who built the modern age. These workers who were there swept into the skylines of our cities, these warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle, gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom.
Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty. And it’s our turn to take America’s destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country. This will be our greatest era; with God’s help over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.
A truly historic and unforgettable speech.
