By Katharine Jackson and Joseph Ax
WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump touted his economic record during the longest State of the Union address in history on Tuesday, boasting that he had ushered in a “golden age” as he sought to project an aura of success at a fraught moment for his presidency.
Heeding calls from advisers worried that his sagging approval ratings augur a challenging midterm election in November, Trump spent the first hour of his televised speech focused on the economy, saying he had curbed inflation, driven the stock market to record heights, signed sweeping tax cuts and lowered drug prices.
“Our nation is back — bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before,” he said after taking the stage to cheers of “USA, USA” from his fellow Republicans in Congress, with dozens of empty seats on the Democratic side a reminder that many lawmakers boycotted the speech in favor of anti-Trump rallies outside.
The annual speech to Congress carried enormous stakes for the president, with his approval ratings slumping, anxieties rising over Iran and Americans frustrated that he has not done more to address the high cost of living.
At the outset, Trump was uncharacteristically disciplined, mostly appearing to stick to the written script and eschewing his typical stream-of-consciousness digressions. But he flashed his combative side while discussing his immigration crackdown, exchanging shouted insults with several Democratic lawmakers.
While Trump declared that inflation is “plummeting,” prices for groceries, housing, insurance and utilities remain significantly higher than they were a few years ago. New data released on Friday showed the economy slowed more than expected last quarter while inflation accelerated.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 36% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy. Democrats hope to seize control of both houses of Congress from Republicans in November when all 435 seats are on the ballot for the House of Representatives and about a third of the 100 seats in the Senate.
While he leveled some familiar attacks on his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, Trump held his fire when it came to the U.S. Supreme Court, which struck down his signature tariff regime on Friday.
Unlike the hours after the decision, when Trump insulted the justices in deeply personal terms, the president shook hands with the four justices in attendance upon entering the House and simply called the ruling “unfortunate.”
Trump finished his speech just before 11 p.m. ET (0400 GMT), after more than an hour and 47 minutes – breaking the record he set last year for the longest presidential address to Congress.
Though he has focused much of his energies in office on foreign policy, the topic got little attention during the first 90 minutes of his speech.
Trump again claimed he “ended” eight wars, an exaggeration, and barely mentioned the Russia-Ukraine war, despite Tuesday marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion.
Trump also did not offer more clarity regarding his plans for Iran, amid growing concern that he may be inching closer to a military conflict with Tehran.
“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” he said. “But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No. 1 sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon.”
TRUMP, DEMOCRATS CLASH
When Trump turned to his favorite topic, immigration, he repeated the same rhetoric that animated his 2024 campaign, claiming undocumented migrants were responsible for a wave of violent crime despite studies showing that is not the case.
“You should be ashamed,” he told Democrats, chastising them for refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security unless measures are taken to curb the aggressive tactics of immigration agents under Trump.
Opinion polls show a majority of Americans believe Trump’s immigration crackdown has gone too far, after two U.S. citizens were shot dead by masked federal agents in Minneapolis.
As Trump praised his immigration enforcement, Democrat Ilhan Omar, who represents a Minneapolis U.S. House district, shouted in his direction, “You have killed Americans!”
Trump, who has falsely claimed for years that election fraud in the U.S. is rampant, also attacked Democrats for not supporting a voter identification requirement.
“They want to cheat,” he said. Democrats argue that the Republican-backed legislation would impose unnecessary burdens on voters and suppress turnout.
Democratic U.S. Representative Al Green was removed from the House chamber for the second consecutive year after waving a sign at Trump that read: “Black people aren’t apes.” The message was a reference to a social media video Trump posted this month that included a clip depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes.
The White House eventually took down the video, and Trump said a staffer posted the video. The 79-year-old Green, who is Black, was also ejected last year after shouting at Trump during his address to Congress.
Other Democrats offered quieter messages of protest. U.S. Representative Jill Tokuda, a Hawaii Democrat, wore a white jacket emblazoned with words like “affordability” and “healthcare.”
A number of Democratic women wore tags saying “release the files,” a reference to the scandal surrounding convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. About a dozen Epstein accusers attended as guests of Democrats.
Befitting a former reality television star with a penchant for the dramatic, Trump bragged about all the “winning” the country was experiencing before introducing some other winners: the U.S. men’s ice hockey team, which won a gold medal at the Winter Olympics on Sunday.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Joseph Ax in Washington; Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Daphne Psaledakis; Writing by Joseph Ax and Andy Sullivan; Editing by Colleen Jenkins, Alistair Bell and Howard Goller)
