“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said. He cited a range of his administration’s actions to boost the economy, from cutting taxes on tips and overtime pay to negotiating lower prescription-drug prices, lowering interest rates, and boosting energy production. Those actions, Trump said, have resulted in economic gains and a lower cost of living.
As evidence he named a run of stock market records on Wall Street, easing inflation, lower mortgage costs, higher 401k balances, and reduced prices for a range of goods, including eggs, chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, and “even beef.” He touted recent proposals to prevent corporate mass purchases of single-family homes and to require artificial-intelligence companies to provide their own energy for booming data centers as further actions to help reduce costs.
Trump’s emphasis on economic gains and lower costs was significant because it’s at odds with how most Americans feel. Recent polls have found most people disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy and say he hasn’t done enough to make life more affordable. Concerns about affordability drove Democratic wins in last November’s elections and in a series of special elections in the months since. Democrats are hoping those issues will help them gain Congressional seats in this November’s midterm elections, and push Trump into lame-duck status.
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat who won in a landslide last November, gave the Democratic response to the State of the Union address. Focusing on many of the same affordability issues that helped her win her election, she said that people tuning into the speech “did not hear the truth from our president.” Trump’s initial round of tariffs, which were struck down in a Supreme Court decision last week, have cost American families an average of $1,700 each, Spanberger said. She told listeners to ask themselves whether Trump is focused on making life more affordable. “We all know the answer is no,” she said.
Affordability questions are defining the political season, not just in the Congressional midterms but in 36 gubernatorial elections and dozens of state legislative races. But other issues animated Trump’s speech on Tuesday as well, and will demand attention from state and local officials in the coming months. Citing a massive fraud scandal in Minnesota that led Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to end his bid for re-election, Trump announced a new anti-fraud task force to be led by Vice President J.D. Vance. In addition to Minnesota, Trump named other states led by Democratic governors, including California, Maine, and Massachusetts, as hotbeds of fraud (states have pushed back against those claims).
Trump boasted of his administration’s record on crime and immigration enforcement, even as polls show he has lost support on the immigration issue in recent months after the killings of two U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis. He said that National Guard deployments in cities like New Orleans, Memphis, and Washington, D.C., — cities he has characterized as crime-ridden and poorly governed — have resulted lower crime rates. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, both Republicans, tweeted messages of gratitude in response. Democratic leaders have said federal troops are unwelcome in other areas, including Portland, Chicago, and Minnesota. Several federal courts last year found that the president's National Guard deployments were unlawful or unconstitutional, including in L.A. and Chicago.
Trump also repeated his false claims about rampant voter fraud and voting by non-citizens in U.S. elections. Of Democrats, most of whom sat silently throughout his nearly two-hour speech, Trump said, “their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat.” He has suggested this year that elections in Democratic areas should be “nationalized,” rather than administered by state and local officials. In his speech he urged passage of the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to show photo ID and proof of citizenship at their polling places. The act has passed the House and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, where it would need to get past the filibuster. The Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, has said that if it’s passed, the act would create immediate administrative difficulties for states and cities without additional federal resources for implementation.
The speech marked an attempt by Trump to gain footing on dinner-table issues that have led to shrinking approval ratings across the first year of his second term. The outcome of the November elections will likely hinge on how Americans feel about Trump himself. Historic patterns show the president’s party almost always loses seats in the midterms, especially when the president is unpopular.
