“I thought it was Trump’s best State of the Union speech yet,” Blaze TV host Steve Deace told his co-hosts in a live post-address discussion.
Deace, who is knowledgeable about politics and past presidents, recalled it’s common for a SOTU speech to include a mundane “laundry list” of policy proposals. With a couple of exceptions, such as urging passage of the SAVE Act, Trump mostly stayed away from that.
“He focused on vision and differing visions and values for America and Americans. He drew very sharp contrasts,” Deace shared.
Trump also artfully took advantage of the seething Democrats seated in front of him.
One glaring example, which was rather on the nose, was the president asking members of Congress to stand to their feet if they support American citizens over illegal aliens.
“If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Trump stated.
Republican lawmakers predictably jumped to their feet, clapping in support. Democrats, many of whom don’t want illegal aliens deported, want to disband ICE while calling its agents "Gestapo" and consider the term "illegal alien" bigoted, remained in their seats.
The contrast didn’t go unnoticed by Riley Gaines, the former collegiate swimmer better known for advocating for female-only athletics.
“I can't wait until we look back as a society and all recognize how absolutely insane and terrifying it is that an entire political party just admitted to caring more about illegal immigrants than American citizens,” Gaines, reacting to that scene, wrote on X.
Not done with that stand-or-sit challenge, Trump pivoted to the hot-button issue of transgenderism. That issue has touched everything from women’s sports and medical care to elementary school classrooms, but it has been beaten back in recent years by state legislatures, the courts, and the Trump administration.
“Surely,” Trump told Congress, “we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents' will.”
Republican lawmakers stood to their feet but Democrats again remained seated.
And then Trump pounced.
“These people are crazy,” the president, pointing to the Democrats, bluntly stated. “I’m telling you: they’re crazy.”
Michael Austin, an ambassador for the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, told AFN he agrees with Trump's reference to "crazy" Democrats who refused to stand.
"I mean, it's one thing if you don't like your political opponent," he observed. "But when they're making general calls for supporting America, you can't even stand for that when you've been elected by Americans to represent Americans? And to act and work in accordance to Americans' wishes? And you can't even stand up and celebrate a good thing for the country?”
Sticking the knife in even more, Trump pointed at the Democratic lawmakers and reminded voters why they chose him over Kamala Harris
“We’re lucky we have a country. With people like this,” Trump continued. “Democrats are destroying our country but we’ve stopped in just in the nick of time.”
In an X post Wednesday morning, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh suggested the president’s State of the Union address helped show a “very clear divide” between the two political parties.
“They are not the same, or even close to the same,” Walsh wrote. “Leftists really do hate this country. They hate western civilization. They hate the institution of the family. They hate your marriage and your children. They want to dismantle it all. Listen to them. They'll tell you.”
Jesse Kelly, a show host on The First, was even more blunt about what the American public witnessed Tuesday night. Democrats are “godless communists” who want our country to be filled with rapists and murderers, he wrote.
“Every chance the GOP gets to point that it out, it should,” Kelly wrote. “Trump did it last night.”
Austin told AFN that Democrats' priorities are not where they need to be.
"It goes to show, as President Trump says, that they care more about illegal aliens than they do about American citizens. And that's a sad, sad, sad thing for this country because it goes to show that there's a political party out there that is not really focused on America's best interests."
