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Trump State of the Union

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Photos: President Trump’s State of the Union address News | 14 minutes ago

5 stand-out moments from Trump’s State of the Union address Administration | 20 minutes ago

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5 stand-out moments from Trump’s State of the Union address

President Trump pitched his vision of a “golden age of America” in record-length remarks to Congress on Tuesday, touting his administration’s wins and attacking rival Democrats as he weathers poor approval numbers and frustrations over the economy. 

The president declared the country “bigger, better, richer and stronger than ever before” in a wide-ranging speech that included several standing ovations from Republicans and insults slung at Democrats. 

While many Democrats boycotted the speech, attending counter-programming events in protest of Trump, many party members sat in pointed silence throughout the president’s speech. One Texas Democrat was escorted from the chamber, and several members heckled the president over Republicans’ standing ovations.

The 1 hour and 48 minute program ran longer than Trump’s 100-minute address to a joint session of Congress last year, though it was not technically a State of the Union, and broke the SOTU record held by former President Clinton. 

Here are a few stand-out moments: 

Trump welcomes U.S. men’s hockey team amid controversy

Not long into his address, Trump welcomed the Olympic gold medal-winning U.S. men’s hockey team to the chamber amid controversy over a viral video of the athletes’ phone call with the president.

“Here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud: the men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team,” Trump said, prompting the team to enter the press gallery above the chamber to applause and “USA” chants.

Trump and the hockey players came under scrutiny for footage of a locker room call in which the president told the men’s team that he would “have to” invite the women’s team to the White House or else he “probably would be impeached.” 

Trump in his speech hailed the men’s win in Sunday’s gold-medal game, but later made a point to call out the women’s team, who declined his invitation to attend his address to Congress. 

“They beat a fantastic Canadian team in overtime, as everybody saw, as did the American women who will soon be coming to the White House,” Trump said.

Trump also noted the upcoming “summer version” of the Olympics will be held in 2028 in Los Angeles, which he said “is going to be safe,” referencing his immigration crackdown in the California city. Though the president has long criticized California and clashed with the states’ Democratic leadership over immigration enforcement and other efforts, he’s repeatedly touted that the games will be held on U.S. home turf.

Trump hands out several medals

Trump handed out several awards to guests at the speech, as he noted his continued interest in receiving his own Medal of Honor.

He announced plans to soon present U.S. men’s hockey goalie Connor Hellebuyck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the “highest civilian honor in our country.” Several other Olympic athletes, including Katie Ledecky and Michael Jordan, have received this award. 

Two National Guard members, who were shot blocks from the White House this fall, received Purple Heart awards, a prestigious military honor for service members wounded or killed in combat. 

Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe received the award during Trump’s address, and the parents of National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom, who died from a gunshot wound after the attack, accepted on their daughter’s behalf. 

He also handed out the military’s highest decoration, the Medal of Honor. 

First Lady Melania Trump presented the honor to 100-year-old former Navy fighter pilot Captain Royce Williams, whom Trump called a “living legend,” and a military official awarded Chief Warrant Officer Eric Slover, who led the administration’s January military operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 

Scott Ruskan, the Coast Guard swimmer who rescued 164 girls at Camp Mystic during deadly floods in Texas last year, received the Legion of Merit Medal.

Trump pans ‘unfortunate’ Supreme Court tariffs ruling

With Supreme Court justices in the audience, Trump bemoaned the court’s “unfortunate” decision to strike down the bulk of his sweeping tariffs last week.

“Just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court. It just came down,” Trump said. The justices stared straight ahead with their hands in their laps.

The court decided 6-3 last week to invalidate an international economic strategy that the administration has touted as a major fixture of his second term. Trump is the first president to attempt to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs, but the justices held that the act does not give him the authority to do so. 

The court’s chief justice, John Roberts, was joined by justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Kavanaugh was the only judge in attendance who joined on to the court’s dissenting opinion on the tariff case.  

The administration is now turning to other alternative powers in order to continue pursuing its signature economic policy. Last Friday, Trump announced new 10 percent global tariffs under another emergency provision, the 1974 Trade Act. He later upped these planned import taxes to 15 percent. 

“They’re a little more complex, but they’re actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before,” Trump said of these alternative powers on Tuesday.

“Congressional action will not be necessary,” he continued. “It’s already contested, and as time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.”

Democrats heckle Trump; Green escorted out for second year

A handful of Democrats heckled the president at several points in the speech, though the exchanges appeared more muted than intense clashes in the past — like when former President Biden engaged with then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-La.) in his last State of the Union address.

As Trump talked about illegal immigration and the border, Rep. Rashida Talib (D-Mich.) yelled at Trump, “You’re killing Americans.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) shouted, “You have killed Americans.” 

Other Democrats jeered Trump, too. Norma Torres (D-Calif.) held up a two-sided sign with the photos of two Americans killed by immigration officers in Minnesota this winter: Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

At the beginning of the president’s speech, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was escorted out of the House chamber for the second year in a row. 

The Democrat was removed after he raised a sign with the words “BLACK PEOPLE AREN’T APES!” scrawled in black marker, in a reference to a now-deleted, AI-doctored video shared by the president, depicting the faces of former President Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama on the bodies of apes. 

“It’s an insult, not only to the President and the First Lady, but to me as a Black person… and I wanted him to know that somebody has the courage to tell him to his face, and that’s what I did,” Green told The Hill as he left the House floor. He said that his removal “did not surprise” him. 

Last year, the Texas congressman was forcibly removed from the chamber after he heckled the president during his speech. Green was later censured in a House vote for a “breach in proper conduct.”

Even Democratic lawmakers who didn’t heckle or outright protest the president made their dissent known, staying seated as their Republican counterparts stood to applaud the president at several points. 

“You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Trump told Democrats who remained seated after he called Department Homeland Security funding amid the agency’s partial shutdown.

“Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy, I’m telling you,” Trump said at another point.

Democrats did, however, stand and applaud when Trump called for Americans to “totally reject political violence of any kind” and when he touted his administration’s success in returning the last living hostages held by Hamas, among other moments. 

Trump jabs at Pelosi amid push to ban lawmaker stock trades

Trump targeted Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the former House Speaker, as he endorsed a ban on lawmakers trading stocks. 

“As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let’s also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information,” the president said.

Members of both parties applauded, and Trump remarked with surprise that some Democrats stood up. 

“I can’t believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up, if she’s here?” he asked.

The 20-term congresswoman has faced scrutiny over her husband’s successful stock trading and once drew backlash for not supporting a ban, but she later reversed course. The California Democrat has stressed that she does not own any stocks and endorsed a separate congressional stock trading ban for members and their spouses last year.

Congress has long pursued a stock trading ban for members, though proposals have struggled to take hold. Trump called on lawmakers to pass the GOP-led Stop Insider Trading Act “without delay.” 

Pelosi and the president have been feuding since Trump’s first term in office, particularly when he spoke before Congress.

Pelosi, then the Speaker of the House, ripped up her copy of Trump’s prepared remarks at the end of his 2020 State of the Union. She posted an image of her tearing another paper on social media ahead of Trump’s Tuesday speech. 

Trump said in November that he was glad that “evil” Pelosi plans to retire from Congress at the end of her term, deriding the first female Speaker as a “tremendous liability” for the country. 

Pelosi in November called Trump “the worst thing on the face of the earth,” accusing him of having effectively “abolished the House of Representatives” with his influence over current House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).  

Ella Lee, Sudiksha Kochi and Emily Brooks contributed.

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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