Donald Trump taunted and trash-talked his way through the longest-ever speech by a modern American president.
On a historic night that deepened the nation’s divisions, Trump’s roughly 99-minute speech to a joint session of Congress eclipsed Bill Clinton’s 89-minute marathon talkfest in 2000.
The president’s chief target was his predecessor, Joe Biden. He heaped all of America’s ills on the recently departed commander-in-chief. In Trumpworld, Biden was to blame for everything from the war in Ukraine to “wokeness” to the rising price of eggs.
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But Trump also faced down Democratic Party opponents in the chamber, chiding them for not joining the applause for his “astronomical achievements” and taking every opportunity to pour scorn on their lack of enthusiasm for his presidency.
He belittled attempts to “viciously” prosecute him, asking the Democratic members: “How did that work out?”
When he used the words “radical left lunatics” when claiming the justice system had been “turned upside down” he pointedly looked across at Democrats.
Trump seemed genuinely irritated that they sat on their hands and didn’t share the GOP’s exuberance.
The president blamed Biden for leading the country into “an economic catastrophe” and “an inflation nightmare” and for allowing the price of eggs to surge “out of control.”
He also attacked the former president for having an “insane” border policy that left “beautiful towns” in America destroyed by dangerous illegal immigrants. It was also Biden’s fault the military was beset by DEI policies and the nation was plagued by “wokeness.” Biden made a mess of the Ukraine war and the departure from Afghanistan as well.
Trump’s insults aimed at Biden set the tone for the raucous behavior in the chamber.
And while Biden was at fault for everything wrong with America in Trump’s eyes, he himself was responsible for everything that was right.
One of the reasons for the speech’s length was Trump’s long list of achievements he has claimed since moving into the White House for a second time on Jan. 20.
He took credit for transforming the border; for saving billions in wasted federal expenditure with DOGE; for changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America; for ridding the federal system of DEI. The list went on. And on. And on, for nearly two hours.
It was all too much for some House Democrats.
About half a dozen walked out, including several who had been holding up protest signs. They included Reps. Pramilia Jayapal, from Washington, Jared Huffman, of California, and Ilhan Omar from Minnesota.
