US President Donald Trump on Tuesday night boasted of a “turnaround for the ages” in his State of the Union speech, seeking to reverse dismal polls and see off mounting challenges at home and abroad ahead of crucial midterm elections.
Trump sought to paint a rosy picture of his achievements in his longest-ever speech to the US Congress — and despite branding Democrats “crazy,” the Republican president largely struck a measured tone.
However, Trump’s speech — met with repeated standing ovations from Republicans, while Democrats remained seated in protest and sometimes heckled — was notably short on actual policy announcements.
Photo: Reuters
As US naval and air forces massed in the Middle East, Trump claimed Iran was seeking missiles able to hit US territory, but said his “preference” was for a diplomatic solution.
Trump began what became a record-breaking one-hour, 47-minute State of the Union by painting an optimistic picture, declaring that the US was “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before.”
“Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before, and a turnaround for the ages,” Trump said.
Photo: AP
The 79-year-old hoped the primetime speech, broadcast across all major US networks, would help him to sell that message to voters after a deeply divisive first year back in power.
Top Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer called Trump’s speech “delusional,” and said it failed to address the struggles of ordinary Americans.
Underwater in opinion polls, Trump focused on what he said were his administration’s economic achievements, but offered little solace for voters angered by the cost of living.
Trump fears his Republican Party would lose control over the US Congress in the November midterms, paralyzing the rest of his second term and exposing him to a possible third impeachment.
He sought to seize on national enthusiasm over Team USA’s gold medal winning Olympic ice hockey performance by inviting the players to join him in the Chamber to massive cheers and chants of “USA.”
He then announced he was awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom — the country’s highest civilian honor — to the team’s goalie.
He also handed Medals of Honor — the highest military award — to a helicopter pilot wounded in last month’s attack to depose Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and also to a 100-year-old Korean War veteran.
Turning to what he said were his administration’s efforts to boost US security, Trump claimed that Iran is seeking missiles that could reach the US. He repeated his insistence that the country would never be allowed to build a nuclear weapon, saying that Tehran’s leaders were “at this moment again pursuing their sinister nuclear ambitions.”
Trump left the door open for a peaceful resolution, adding that negotiations were continuing and that “my preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy.”
Iran yesterday dismissed his claims about its missile program as “big lies.”
Trump also boasted that Venezuela was now shipping oil to the US after Washington ousted its leader, and celebrated the killing of a Mexican narco kingpin.
At about the hour mark, he resumed his customary dark rhetoric against opponents and undocumented immigrants, claiming that Democrats were “destroying our country” and that Somali “pirates” had “ransacked” Minnesota.
In the Democrats’ rebuttal to Trump’s speech, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger criticized the US president for his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein affair, as well as alleged corruption, but mostly focused on cost-of-living issues centrists believe would have cross-party appeal.
“Costs are too high in housing, healthcare, energy and childcare,” Spanberger said. “Americans deserve to know that their leaders are focused on addressing the problems that keep them up at night.”
Spanberger, a former CIA officer and three-term Congresswoman, won back the Virginia governor’s mansion from Republicans last year with an platform focused on affordability.
Her selection to deliver the party’s formal rebuttal to Trump’s address to Congress was clearly aimed at putting forward an example for the rest of the party to follow.
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