Last night, Trump held his State of the Union that was technically not the State of the Union (because the union purportedly hasn't been updated enough during a president's first term to qualify), but rather a joint address to Congress.
It was exactly what you'd expect. Trump emphasized border security and law enforcement, the cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency—at one point questionably touting all the fraud that he implies is partially responsible for the Social Security program being in such dire fiscal straits—and the importance of ending the war in Ukraine. He repeatedly came back to his own popularity and his mandate to make sweeping changes. He talked up his executive orders, including the one emphasizing that there are two genders and that the Department of Education will slash funding for schools that go against that message. He brought out a girl who had been subjected to deepfake pornography. He very cutely gave DJ Daniel, a little boy who loves the police and is suffering from brain cancer, an honorary position in the Secret Service. He talked about the murders of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray at the hands of Tren de Aragua gang members and about how he had designated cartels as "foreign terrorist organizations."
Early in the speech, Texas Rep. Al Green, a Democrat, stood up and shouted, "You have no mandate to cut Medicaid," before being ejected from the chamber. Democrats protested with silly little Fogo de Chão paddles begging to be memed, and there was a fair amount of right-wing consternation at their seeming refusal to stand or clap during the sweet DJ Daniel moment.
