Extract from ABC News
Analysis
Donald Trump has delivered the first State of the Union address of his second term. (Reuters: Kenny Holston/pool)
Donald Trump's showmanship and supreme confidence can easily distract from the fact that the US president — whose approval rating is sitting at 39 per cent — had a lot riding on his State of the Union address.
His record-setting marathon was notable for its (relative) discipline. He (mostly) stuck to the script and the message. His tone was (relatively) benign rather than rambling, ranting and nasty.
He did not go off script and tumble down one of his regular rabbit-hole issues for too long, or launch any sustained vicious attacks on those he sees as his adversaries.
He spent the first hour on the economy and affordability issues, which are central to voters' concerns. The real test of the success of his speech will be whether it did the political job of persuading voters things are better than they feel they are.
Many of Trump's economic claims were outlandish, or just lies.
Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the US Capitol. (Reuters: Kevin Lamarque)
For example, he said his administration had "driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years". He said inflation was "plummeting" (it has eased a little bit overall since he took office).
His claims of a historic economic turnaround sit uncomfortably with an annual growth rate of 2.2 per cent in 2025 compared to 2.8 per cent in 2024.
Trump claimed that he had "the most people working in history". But the percentage of people who were employed in January this year is exactly the same as it was in January last year.
The crucial bit, always, is not the actual numbers — or the fact checks — but the extent to which the picture a politician paints of the economy tallies with conditions that people are experiencing in their own lives.
The president's heavy use of personal stories of people gathered in the galleries to persuade people watching at home of the value of his policies was striking.
And they would have been persuasive for many viewers not too concerned to scrutinise the details.
The speech highlighted how Trump's "big beautiful tax cuts" are clearly seen as central to persuading voters that his administration and the Republicans contesting the midterm elections this year are directed right at the affordability issue.
Tariffs — so central to Trump's economic and foreign policy strategies in the past year and notably struck down on Friday by the Supreme Court — were claimed both as a foreign policy win (while they are actually now just the cause of global confusion and disruption) and a source of revenue (to be miraculously paid by foreign countries instead of Americans) that could single-handedly replace income taxes.
Donald Trump takes a swipe at the US Supreme Court over its tariff ruling during his address.
Beyond the economy, the other political ship that Trump had to right in his State of the Union address was the immigration issue.
Stopping illegal immigration has always been a key factor in Trump's political success. But the images of masked ICE agents and the killings of two US citizens in Minnesota have soured many Americans' views on this issue and Trump's methods.
Trump spent much of the second hour of his speech highlighting stories of US citizens who he said had been killed or violently attacked by illegal immigrants, showing how he wishes to reshape the immigration issue from illegal arrivals to an internal threat.
The first job of government, he said, was to protect American citizens and not illegal aliens.
In this part of the speech he was trying to provoke and typecast Democrats in the audience who refused to stand and applaud many of his comments on immigration.
He did once again claim — with little evidence — that the Somali community in Minnesota had "pillaged $19 billion from the American taxpayer" to cries of "liar" from the Democrats' benches.
Rejoicing in what he said was a resurgence of religion, he lauded the late Charlie Kirk, who he said had been "martyred" for his beliefs.
His declaration that "we must totally reject political violence of any kind" seemed a particularly odd one to make in the very building that was subjected to the horrific violence of January 6, 2020, which was encouraged — according to many observers — by Trump himself.
Foreign policy — or at least foreign countries — didn't really feature until 90 minutes into the speech.
Ukraine, whose war with Russia he had boasted he would end within 24 hours of coming to office, barely got a mention.
More astonishingly, a rationale for attacking Iran, which we are told could happen any day, also did not feature. There was just a confused argument about how "Operation Midnight Hammer" had obliterated Iran's nuclear program, even as he warned of the need to obliterate Iran's nuclear weapons.
Donald Trump says he will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, during his State of the Union address.
There were Congressional Medals of Freedom for war heroes, adulation of the Olympic Hockey Team and many other associations with winners.
Perhaps these props were the best indicator of all that Trump needs some reflected glory these days, and can't just generate his own.
Laura Tingle is the ABC's global affairs editor.
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