Virginia’s newly elected Democratic Governor Abigail Spanberger will deliver her party’s formal response to Trump’s address tonight. California Senator Alex Eadilla will deliver the Democratic response in Spanish. And, for some reason, Pennsylvania Congresswoman Summer Lee will deliver a response to Trump on behalf of the Working Families Party.
But that’s not all the Democratic Party is doing to counter Trump’s message tonight. Far from it.
A number of Democratic members intend to counterprogram the State of the Union as the president’s speech is ongoing. The “People’s State of the Union,” which will be emceed by former MSNBC hosts Joy Reid and Katie Phang, will take place on the National Mall.
Meanwhile, some Democrats will be attending another competing counter-event: the “State of the Swamp” gathering at the National Press Club. Several Democrats have informed reporters only of their intention to boycott Trump’s address and may participate in more than one Democratic event.
All these responses promise to be lively. But, given their steadfast determination to avoid hearing a word Trump says tonight, Democrats aren’t going to be responding at all.
Back in July 2024, Donald Trump concluded that the country needed to hear the longest convention speech in U.S. history. It was not really remembered as one of the highlights of Trump’s campaign. I have my doubts that at this moment, the president’s political fortunes call for a long speech. In case you’re wondering, Trump’s 2025 address to Congress is the current record for longest address to Congress at 100 minutes. The second-longest was Bill Clinton in 2000 at 89 minutes.
It’s remarkable to look back at Trump’s last State of the Union address before the 2018 midterm elections, if only to recall what the president’s fellow Republicans wanted to hear from Trump.
Last time around, Senate Republicans urged the president to promote a positive agenda, lay out his “record of achievement,” and all that. But they also had a laundry list of policy preferences they hoped Trump would grace with his attention. Senators hoped to hear a riff or two on “success of the tax cuts,” “a positive and robust trade policy” (one that laid off NAFTA), “an update on the international front,” the “opioid crisis,” an “infrastructure package,” and even “prison reform.”
What a luxury it was to have such an extensive buffet of issues to which the president could have devoted precious primetime minutes. Much has changed in the interim. Today, Republican lawmakers are all but unified in their desire to hear the president tout this Congress’s most expansive legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the extent to which it is helping relieve the pressure on voters’ wallets.
The GOP wants the president to focus primarily on the economy and, in particular, to defend the Republican Party’s economic initiatives in the hopes that the message lights a fire under their relatively unenthusiastic base voters. But it may take more than a single speech to do that.
The White House YouTube feed right now is Claymation Trump
One of the big things that has hurt the State of the Union’s relevance is the decline of congressional lawmaking. When presidents focused on getting Congress to pass their agenda, it mattered that they publicly explain what was on their agenda, illustrate to Congress and the voters which of those items were their highest priorities, and convince the voters to pressure Congress to enact it. When presidents rule mainly by control of the executive branch, they still need voters to win elections, but they no longer need them to get particular things done. So, explaining their thinking – and doing so where the whole Congress feels compelled to sit and listen to them publicly – matters a lot less than it used to matter.
For that matter, when presidents come to Congress asking Congress to do things, it is also important for the opposition to be there. Democrats feel freer to boycott an address that is mostly Trump talking about what he has done and proposes to do with executive power.