Inside The Chamber: Donald Trump’s Marathon Of A State Of The Union Went Long With Showmanship Tributes, But Fell Short On Cohesion — Analysis

As journalists settled in to their gallery workplaces above the rostrum in the House of Representatives chamber, there was some chat, and maybe a few bets, as to how long Donald Trump would go in his State of the Union address.

He had already signaled that this speech would be lengthy, an indication that he would exceed his record-breaking length last year of one hour and thirty nine minutes. This time, maybe he goes to two hours? As one reporter predicted three, hearts sank in the crammed quarters.

In the end, Trump clocked in at 1:47, with a sprawling speech that sought to be many things at once.

There was the soaring rhetoric tied to the United States’ 250th anniversary.

There were the policy prescriptions that are a tradition of all addresses, with the president’s insistence that the key midterm issue, affordability, was under control.

There were the emotional, reality show moments where the president recognized servicemembers and veterans with one of the nations’ highest honors, as well as the reveal of the Olympic gold-medal winning U.S. men’s hockey team. At certain points, the president seemed to take on the role of an award show emcee or as host of This Is Your Life, helping to drum up chants of “USA! USA! USA.” That said, he never ceded the mic.

Yet as Trump went on, he parroted from his past greatest hits, rattling off a number of quickly debunked claims, while he hurled insults at “crazy” Democrats and accused them of cheating in elections, without any evidence.

All State of the Union addresses are a hodge podge of a president’s preferred talking points, but that lack of cohesion was especially on display on Tuesday evening. Trump’s efforts to achieve the kind of Reagan-era national sense of pride were undermined by other parts where he chose to go dark, describing scenes of violence and threat, or baiting Democrats into divisive cultural battles.

That was especially apparent when he tried to goad them, challenging members to stand if they agreed that “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

The result: Republicans gave him a long and standing sustained cheer, as Democrats remained sitting in silence.

As he started to speak again, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), shouted, “You have killed Americans!”

Trump’s they-are-the-crazy ones strategy, though, depended on avoiding a bevy of topics. Just as the president looked away quickly when he spotted Rep. Al Green’s “Black People Aren’t Apes” sign, he didn’t touch on topics such as the Jeffrey Epstein files or the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two topics that have likely contributed heavily to his falling poll numbers. Nor did the president dwell on one of his main obsessions of his second term: Construction and renaming projects, from the East Wing to the Kennedy Center to the giant Arlington arch.

It didn’t matter that the president didn’t touch on those negatives, as the takeaway from the speech was far from the sunny optimism of the Gipper who, unlike Trump, actually presided over a divided government for his eight years.

By contrast, the divisions are only getting worse, fomented now for years with Trump. Even though there were many moments when Democrats stood up with Republicans to recognize military heroes or the U.S. hockey team, the polarization was just as great coming out of the speech as it was going in.

As Trump wrapped up, most Democrats were out of the seats and out the chamber doors in less than two minutes, leaving one side of the chamber vacant as the president was still coming down from the rostrum to a horde of GOP handshakes and cheers.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) said that he thought “the president hit a home run with that. I thought it was a great thing to do. And I think for the American people, the people are tied of the political showmanship. I think they just want to be Americans.”

He said that it’s Democrats who were divisive, not just in the chamber but for what could happen if they regain the majority in the midterms.

“What the hell does it matter if they take over the House?” Donalds said. “Because the American people don’t want impeachments. They want solutions.”

The political impact of the speech likely will come less from patriotic display and cultural battles and more from the economy, and whether voters actually feel good about it, closer to the president’s insistence that things are not just fine but great. Based on polls, Trump has a long way to go.

Rep. Mark Takano (D-CA) said that, as long as the speech was, some Democratic members thought it would go even longer. “Some members were still like, ‘It’s over?’ They thought it was going to go on some more.”

He said that he actually left about 2/3 of the way into the speech.

Takano said, “He was trying to set Democrats up with ‘gotcha’ moments, and be able to say, ‘You know, these Democrats are crazy.’ I didn’t think much of it. I don’t think he changed much of the narrative tonight, very little of it. I think it’s a little blip. We’ll see. He might get a little bump out of it, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”