State of the Union addresses are legislative documents. The president tries to direct Congress and signal priorities. Trump spent the past year consolidating executive power, not legislating. If the president acts alone through executive orders and directives, there is less need to involve Congress. By that standard, last Tuesday’s address was sparse. Trump made about 6 specific legislative requests: reducing drug prices, an insider trading ban for Congress, a licensing restriction for undocumented immigrants, DHS funding, and a voter ID law. That’s a short list for such a major address. Acting alone has its limits, as the courts and public opinion make clear. The address did little to build the legislative backing needed, as those limits show.
For months, polls have shown that the cost of living, including the costs of groceries, housing, and energy, is the dominant worry for the American public. Yet Trump offered a rosy economic portrait: rising stock prices, lower gas prices, and vindication of his tariff strategy. Missing entirely was any “I feel your pain” acknowledgment of the hardships millions of households are experiencing right now.
Trump’s approval ratings sit at or near historic lows for a president at this stage of his term, with voters specifically blaming his tariff policies for rising prices on electronics, appliances, and other imported goods. Rather than pivoting from his controversial strategy, he doubled down, defending the duties even as he acknowledged last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking down his emergency tariff authority. He vowed to maintain them under alternative legal justifications. While that defiance may play well with his base, it forecloses the reset opportunity that pollsters and strategists in both parties agree he badly needs ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The speech gave little attention to foreign policy. China received only a mention, while Russia and the war in Ukraine were briefly addressed as ongoing negotiations. Praise for NATO allies lacked substantive engagement.
Trump’s foreign policy focused almost entirely on the hemisphere. He celebrated reduced border crossings, praised anti-drug maritime operations, and touted the January military operation that ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, describing the Maduro-aligned interim government of Delcy Rodríguez as a “new friend and partner” in what analysts will find a jarring characterization. On Iran, he said he sought a nuclear deal but acknowledged he had not yet heard Tehran commit to abandoning its weapons ambitions, even as he warned that Iran was developing missiles capable of reaching the United States.
Trump understands the showmanship in politics. Tuesday’s address featured gold medalists, live ceremonies, and applause lines meant to divide Democrats. He called Democratic lawmakers ‘crazy’ to cast himself as reasonable on immigration, crime, and culture issues. This approach worked for him in 2024.
Two things have changed since the election. Trump now owns the economy, and voters blame him for problems. His immigration record is judged by results, not promises. Polls show support for deportations, but Americans dislike how they are done: most detainees have no criminal record, and two citizens were killed by federal officers in January. The gap between Trump’s words and his results is growing, and showmanship cannot hide it.
Presidents rarely address the whole nation on prime time. The State of the Union is the biggest chance. Pollster Lee Miringoff said Trump could have reset with the public, but that’s hard since his opinions are set. Trump chose to speak to his base, to reassure, energize, and entertain, not persuade.
For a president whose approval numbers are rapidly sliding, whose party faces real exposure in November midterms, and whose foreign policy is raising alarm among allies and adversaries alike, that may prove to have been a consequential choice. The show, as Trump would say, must go on. But we cannot let political theater replace effective governance of our country. And at this moment, from domestic governance to its role on the global stage, the United States needs far more of the latter. Taken together, the address revealed three defining features of the administration’s governing approach: an optimistic economic narrative that overlooks specific price increases experienced by many Americans, a minimal legislative agenda, and a foreign policy posture defined more by omission than strategy.
