State of the union

Donald Trump may have celebrated Team USA for winning the gold at the Olympics in hockey, but he was not in a puckish mood during his State of the Union speech. Instead, Trump stuck to his tried-and-true script of denouncing Democrats as “sick,” mocking concerns about affordability and cooing over Melania as a great new movie star. Far from nobody ever seeing anything like it, Trump delivered what everybody has already seen. Ever the salesman, he was not shy with the superlatives, declaring that America is the “hottest” country in the world – “bigger, better, richer, stronger than ever before.” If there was one thing that was longer than ever, it was Trump’s own address, which set a record length of 108 minutes.

According to President Biden, not since the Civil War has American freedom and democracy been so under assault. In his State of the Union address, Biden characterized January 6 as a day when “insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy.” With this kind of rhetoric emanating from the White House, it is no wonder a good portion of the country believes that any use of the legal system is justified to protect us from a second Donald Trump administration.  Except... that is not how the law works. By stretching their prosecutorial powers to the breaking point, Democrats are perverting the very system they are claiming to protect.  Take the charade in New York.

Steve Nikoui’s son, Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui, was killed alongside twelve other American service-members outside of Abbey Gate at the Kabul Airport during the Biden administration's hasty exit of Afghanistan in August 2021. That's why Nikoui's outburst, “Do you remember Abbey Gate,” interrupted the president’s State of the Union address on Thursday, roughly fifty-one minutes through the speech. Nikoui was escorted out, arrested, placed in handcuffs and charged with a misdemeanor that could see him in jail for up to ninety days. “I remember what set me off," Nikoui told The Spectator Friday night, in his first interview since his arrest. "When he was talking about kids, in one moment, they're glorifying these abortions...

One of the first things I noticed last night as I arrived on Capitol Hill to cover President Joe Biden’s fourth State of the Union address was the insane amount of security. Multiple blocks of streets surrounding the Capitol were fenced off by police and cop cars with their flashing lights on were ubiquitous. I hadn’t seen anything like it in downtown DC since the Capitol complex was locked down in the aftermath of the January 6 Capitol riot. Except then, staff and press were allowed to enter the gates with a valid ID badge. This time, we all had to make the trek around the massive perimeter in the hopes of finding one open door to get into a congressional building and then snake through the tunnels to the Capitol.

Fresh — or not so fresh — from his awkward and stilted State of the Union address, President Biden took his show on the road to Florida to stump against what he claims are Republican plans to cut (“sunset” in Beltway-speak) Social Security and Medicare. Apparently unaware that Florida is now an irretrievably red state, on Thursday the president spoke at the University of Tampa in what was widely received as a kickstart to his expected 2024 reelection campaign. Despite platitudes about bipartisanship, Biden targeted Florida Senator Rick Scott, a Republican who has floated a plan to review federal programs once every five years for reauthorization (though the plan does not specifically mention either Social Security or Medicare).

The State of the Union is like that annual meeting where the boss says it was a triumphant year as the business continues to be overleveraged. And in that spirit this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, upon completion of the charade de hubris shredded her meeting (speech?) handout into tiny pieces behind the Commander-in-Chief, as he finished his remarks to the applause of half the room. The optics were stellar or childish depending on who you talked to. Democrats hailed Pelosi’s actions as a brave act of defiance earning Pelosi a #Resistance brand on her left shoulder the next time the 'Squad' has a meeting.

As Democrats watch their single accomplishment, impeaching the president, go up in flames before their eyes and the nation remains stunned at the chaos and incompetence of their botched caucus in Iowa, President Trump addressed America on Tuesday’s State of the Union from a position of stability and growth. The very stable genius, in fact, showed us that side, at least compared to the frothing leader of the Democrats sitting behind him. For a Trump speech, it was quite civil, perhaps his best production yet, with very limited trolling, save for a direct slap to Congress’s socialist contingent by bringing ousted Venezuelan leader Juan Guaidó as a guest, who he referred to as ‘Mr President.

One of the many things that F. Scott Fitzgerald said that sound good but isn’t true is this: 'There are no second acts in American lives.' Consider the life of Donald Trump. Five years ago he was a dubious real estate developer and professional celebrity. Now he is not only president of the United States, but he is, three years into his first term, the most ostentatiously successful president in memory. Donald Trump is a walking refutation of what is perhaps Fitzgerald’s second most quoted line. Possibly Fitzgerald’s first most quoted line is this: 'The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.' That isn’t true, either.