4 Questions About Trump’s State of the Union

President Donald Trump will give the first State of the Union address of his second term tomorrow. He’s expected to defend his economic record and restate his position in the tense standoff with Iran, but there could be some surprises in the prime-time speech.

I’ve written about these supernovas of presidential rhetoric for three decades – my first was President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union in 1998. To put in perspective how much time has passed, the federal budget ran a surplus of $69 billion that fiscal year. The fiscal 2025 deficit is projected to hit $1.9 trillion.

This year’s speech comes days after the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. While the 6-3 ruling was a body blow to his signature economic policy, he says he will try to impose some tariffs in other ways.

If any justices attend, they’ll be seated right in his line of sight.

With the benefit of experience, I’m offering four questions about Trump’s remarks – and hopefully at least a couple of answers.

Technically, we’ll be tuning in because the Constitution (Article II, Section 3) says the president has to provide this assessment “from time to time.” It does not specify a speech. This could be done in writing.

But that would be political malpractice. As countless White House aides have told me over the decades, this is probably the largest audience an American politician will get all year, even if recent ratings are down from their heyday.

The most recent State of the Union speeches haven’t been just for TV or radio. People follow along on their phones. Clips of key moments zip around social media for days. And I, for one, am very curious to see how the remarks do on YouTube, our most-watched television platform.

So yes, it very much matters, even if it does not move the needle much in our hyper-polarized political context.

One frequent inside-the-Beltway jibe is that any president might as well declare, “Tonight, I come before you to speak in ringing tones and stare into the middle distance.” The chief executive is expected to defend their record and offer some clues about how they view the way forward.

But tomorrow’s speech will be a window into how seriously the White House and the unpopular president view the challenge of selling his economic record in a midterm election year. (I separate the two because what the speechwriters craft and what Trump delivers are often at odds.)

Will this be more of the same language that he has used, in vain, to try to reverse his slide in the polls? Or will he try a new tack?

There can always be surprises. In 1996, seeking reelection, President Bill Clinton declared, “The era of big government is over.” A few months after 9/11, President George W. Bush lumped Iran, Iraq and North Korea in an “axis of evil.” In 2006, Bush called for legislation to prevent the creation of “human-animal hybrids.”

In an era of off-the-cuff presidential moments, pity the speechwriters – like Raymond Price, the aide in charge of writing President Richard Nixon’s 1970 speech. History records that Price pulled several all-nighters thanks to amphetamines known as “greenies,” courtesy of the White House doctor.

Well. Last year’s response when Trump addressed a joint meeting of Congress included a cane-waving outburst, which led to an ejection from the House chamber. It was pretty cringey.

But it was an effort to get beyond responding with a live televised speech of their own, a tradition for decades. These deliveries from both parties have been unmemorable at best. Those that stand out often do so for the wrong reasons, like then-Senator Marco Rubio’s 2013 remarks, which he famously interrupted to take a gulp of water.

This year the task falls to Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

At least a dozen Democratic senators and representatives have already said they will boycott Trump’s speech, according to NBC. Some will attend a counter-programming rally, dubbed the “People’s State of the Union,” on the National Mall near the Capitol, the New York Times says.

That’s D.C. jargon for the special guests who sit in the gallery above the House floor, waiting to be invoked by the president.

We owe the term to President Ronald Reagan’s 1982 speech, which came two weeks after an airliner crashed into the icy Potomac River. Reagan gave one of those seats to Lenny Skutnik for his heroic efforts to save survivors and paid tribute to him in his remarks.

Trump has been adept at those moments, whether stoking partisan passions by giving right-wing commentator Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom or drawing a bipartisan standing ovation by reuniting a soldier with his family after a deployment overseas.

Both were surprises. What’s in store tomorrow?