Trump’s Lie-Filled State of the Union Meets Fierce Democratic Rebuttal

Trump’s State of the Union speech took on “some ominous lynch mob vibes,” historian Seth Cotlar noted, “as the almost entirely white and overwhelmingly male Republicans in the chamber stand and jeer at their Democratic colleagues while their angry, screaming leader eggs them on.”

“These people are crazy. I’m telling you. They’re crazy,” Trump said, pointing at Democrats.

But if being crazy means being out of touch with reality, then Trump and his supporters were clearly the crazy ones, as Trump outdid himself with a torrent of lies during the longest State of the Union speech ever, while large numbers of Democrats stayed away and spoke out at alternative events. Those who remained brought Epstein survivors, immigrants, and others targeted by ICE as their guests.

“Cheating is rampant in our elections,” Trump lied, still obsessed with having lost the 2020 election by over seven million votes. His myriad attempts to prove voter fraud in the 2020 election came up empty, and in Arizona, even ended up increasing Biden’s margin of victory.

“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” Trump lied. The economy added a paltry 181,000 jobs last year, significantly less than the 237,000 jobs added in Dec 2024, Biden’s last full month in office.

“I will make peace wherever I can,” Trump lied, having threatened to invade Greenland, a NATO ally.

“I ended eight wars,” Trump lied. Most involved only temporary cooling of hostilities, with the US playing a modest role at best. One (Kosovo and Serbia) never existed in the first place. Not on the list was Russia’s war against Ukraine, which he promised to end “on day one” during the 2024 campaign.

And of course, Trump lied that tariffs were “paid by foreign countries” and expressed the hope that they “will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax,” a fantasy of returning to the 19th century, in line with his love of robber barons, corruption and coal.

In contrast to Trump’s gaslighting lie-fest, Rep. Summer Lee delivered a crisp Working Families Party response

“Let’s start with a simple truth. What we are witnessing from our government is authoritarianism,” Lee said. “Any response that doesn’t acknowledge that truth is a disservice to Americans who deserve and need honesty right now…. While Trump and his friends profit off of his presidency, he is gaslighting us. He wants to convince working families that we’re better off under his regime. But we know the truth. Our country is in crisis.”

Senator Chris Murphy, spoke similarly at the “People’s State of the Union,” attended by several Democratic lawmakers including senators Chris van Hollen, and Ruben Gallego.

“The true State of the Union is that this union is in crisis right now,” Murphy said. “Our cities are under attack by lawless law enforcement. Our democracy is wilting under ceaseless attack from a president who wants to be a despot. Millions of Americans are losing their health care because the president has chosen corruption to pad the pockets of his billionaire friends instead of helping average Americans. You’re not going to hear any of that in that speech tonight.”

The official Democratic Party response, delivered by Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was “more measured,” as the pundits might say, but did not shy away from calling a spade a spade.

“There’s the coverup of the Epstein files, the crypto scams, cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms, putting his name and face on buildings all over our nation’s capital,” she said. “This is not what our founders envisioned. Not by a long shot. So I’ll ask again: Is the president working for you? We all know the answer is no.”

Polls show the people solidly agree with Lee, Murphy and Spanberg. Multiple recent polls have Trump’s approval sinking into the 30s. A recent ABC/WP/Ipsos poll found just 39% approved of his job overall, vs 60% who disapproved—a net approval of -21. While he did slightly better on the economy overall (-16) and immigration (-18), he did much worse on tariffs (-30) and inflation (-33).

With deficits that steep, Trump went into the State of the Union needing to change people’s minds, not just pump up his base, and pre-speech media coverage naively suggested he might do just that.

“Journalists going with the ludicrous ‘Trump seeks a reset’ or ‘seeks to reclaim the narrative’ previews of tonight’s speech had damn well better make it clear that he failed when he fails,” veteran media critic Dan Froomkin wrote on Bluesky, before the speech.

“He failed. They need to say so. But they won’t,” he added afterwards. But the media problem is even bigger than that.

The next day, the New York Times featured two writers who “liked” his “plans” and delivery vs five writers who “hated” them. In response, Froomkin noted, “What a pathetic attempt to appear ‘balanced’ about an epic fail. The two NYT opinion ‘writers’ who liked Trump’s speech have collectively written one NYT opinion piece in the last year.”

The more desperately the media seeks to maintain ‘balance,’ the more it has to abandon truth. Trump’s gaslighting may be more desperate than ever, but media gaslighting is still there supporting him, even if the public no longer believes.