Donald J. Trump hits new lows in his State of the Union Address
If Drew Carey tires of his gig at “The Price Is Right” and we all survive the coming three years, perhaps Donald J. Trump will find his true calling in asking contestants to “Come on Down.”
Certainly, that was the ethos for much of Trump’s gimmicky State of the Union Address. His mixture of economic lies, Democrat-baiting and a despicable abuse of crime victims, blended with the monarchical bestowal of national awards, carried the tiresome whiff of a game-show. Certainly, it was no sober speech to the nation appropriate for a president.
“Donald Trump held court in the House of Representatives and said little of substance, but substance wasn’t the point,” Tom Nichols of The Atlantic wrote. “This year, he intended to put on a show, with an array of guest stars and special appearances. He was happy because he was playing the roles he clearly loves: game-show host, ringmaster, emcee, beneficent granter of wishes – and, where the Democrats were concerned, a self-righteous inquisitor.”
One of the less embarrassing — but nonetheless bizarre — moments came when Trump announced he would give the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Connor Hellebuyck, the goalie for Team USA in the Olympics.
Recall that past presidents have given the medal to folks such as the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jonas Salk, Simon Wiesenthal and Desmond Tutu, as well as talented entertainers such as Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Presley. Athletes with long careers of success, including Tiger Woods, Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, have also gotten it. Typically, such awards were bestowed in private ceremonies at the White House.
But only Trump, ever keen for an audience, has chosen State of the Union Addresses as the stages for making such award announcements. He did so first in 2020 by bestowing the medal on right-wing radio provocateur Rush Limbaugh – loudly making a pandering political point — and following up with Hellebuyck this year. While the presentations would come later, Trump chose his national primetime addresses for the announcements, drawing the maximum attention.
After all, with Trump it’s all about attention, isn’t it?
Admittedly, there’s no argument about Hellebuyck’s performance in the U.S. team’s triumph over Canada. He had 41 saves and assisted in the game-winning overtime goal. Regarded as one of the best goalies in the NHL, he was awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy for the 2024-25 season as the league’s most valuable player. Ironically, the Michigan-born iceman plays for the Winnipeg Jets.
But was this really about the goalie and the hockey team?
Or was this Trump basking in their reflected glory in a made-for-TV feel-good moment, one replete with a grand entrance by the team? (“Come on Down”) Was this Trump showing how, even as a billionaire, he’s really a man of the people, an ordinary Joe at heart? Indeed, is anything Trump does really about anyone but him?
Self-aggrandizing as the hockey moment was, though, Trump hit the lowest gut-churning marks in his abuse of still-grieving crime victims. He used them and their appearances to glorify his law-and-order bona fides. These people served as potted plants on his stage set, giving him license to enrage or disturb his national audience.
Trump referred to Iryna Zarutska, for instance, noting she was attacked by a “deranged monster” who “viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.” The 23-year-old was fatally stabbed in September on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, by a man with a history of mental illness and previous arrests. Trump soberly pointed to the woman’s mother in the chamber, using her as a prop for his tirade.
Trump also highlighted the fatal shooting of 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom near the White House in November as she was on patrol as a National Guard member in Washington. As Politico reported, he described her as having been “ambushed and shot in the head by a terrorist monster from Afghanistan,” using the incident to underscore both his strict law-and-order messaging and his revulsion at foreigners.
Handing out awards like royal plums to deserving servants, Trump posthumously awarded Beckstrom the Purple Heart, presenting it along with one to U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, who was also shot in the attack. The young woman’s killer entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that resettled Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal. He applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration.
Never mind that the pair of National Guards would never have been in D.C. if not for Trump’s theatrical deployment of such troops. Such guard personnel were tasked with patrols and beautification efforts like clearing trash, spreading mulch and pruning trees.
Trump also attacked immigrants by drawing attention to other victims. One was Dalilah Coleman, a young girl from Bakersfield, California, who suffered life-altering injuries in a June 2024 car crash involving a truck driver from India. With the child and her father in the gallery, Trump used her story to advocate for “Dalilah’s Law,” aimed at restricting commercial driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants.
Trump also singled out Lizbeth Medina, a 16-year-old cheerleader from Texas who was killed by a Mexican man who had overstayed his work visa in 2023. “Lizbeth’s killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and brutally, really just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family’s life, violently and viciously,” Trump said. “Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals for our country at record numbers. And we’re getting them the hell out of here fast. We don’t want them.”
Of course, Trump used the occasion to taunt Democrats in the chamber, challenging them to stand if they felt the government’s first duty is to protect Americans, not “illegal aliens.” The Dems were having none of it, refusing to rise to his bait.
No one would argue against deporting criminals – especially violent ones. But repeated studies have shown that crime rates among undocumented immigrants are dramatically lower than those of native-born Americans. Moreover, as even government data have shown, growing numbers of immigrants rounded up by ICE have no such criminal backgrounds.
As could be predicted, Trump never mentioned the murders of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis by agents of his government. Selective, even dishonest, use of anecdotes, perhaps? No hints of remorse and no regrets, certainly.
Using sad, troubling – even revolting — cases such as Medina and Coleman to make overbroad claims when the data don’t support them reflects sloppy thinking, of course. But, more than that, it’s sheer demagoguery aimed at uncritical and, perhaps, racist voters.
Those examples, along with the happy talk of the ice hockey heroes, may have been all about distracting from Trump’s failures on the economic front, particularly the woes of those on the lower socio-economic end – people who may be core parts of his base. Of course, that didn’t stop the president from making bogus claims.
A “roaring economy,” Trump said near the start of his overlong speech, “is roaring like never before.” He’s leading a “turnaround for the ages,” all part of America’s “golden age.”
Never mind that growth in real gross domestic product slipped to just 2.2 percent in 2025, compared with an increase of 2.8 percent in 2024. Or that U.S. job creation in 2025 slowed, with just 181,000 net new jobs added for the year, the weakest performance since 2003 (excluding 2020).
Data be damned. The world is as Trump sees it and everyone else should see it that way, too.
And never mind that inflation continues to nibble away at the wallets of most Americans. Trump insisted: “Inflation is plummeting.”
In fact, while inflation has eased during Trump’s second term, “plummeting” is an exaggeration, as PBS reported. The year-over-year rise in prices for January 2026 was about 2.4 percent. Yes, that’s lower than the rate when Trump took office in January 2025, but it had already fallen from a peak of roughly 9 percent under former President Joe Biden. By Biden’s last month in office, year-over-year inflation had declined to 2.9 percent. The Federal Reserve aims to keep inflation about 2 year-over-year.
Recall Trump’s campaign promises on the price front.
“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods,” he said in August 2024. He repeated the claim twice more that month: “Prices will come down. You just watch.” And “Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will make America affordable again.”
Barely a third of Americans polled are buying Trump’s pabulum on inflation, though. In the latest Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, the president’s worst rating is on inflation, with just 32 percent approving of how he has dealt with the issue. And most aren’t swallowing his drivel on the economy overall: on the question of his handling of the economy, just 41 percent approve of his performance.
Regardless of Trump’s claims, when people’s lived experience differs, guess how that plays. Just consider housing, perhaps the most crucial element in our financial lives. As the U.S. Census Bureau has reported, the average sales price of new houses sold in December 2025 was $532,600, a half-point above that in November and 4.7 percent above the December 2024 price of $508,900.
How many young people can afford that? Are they lining up behind Trump’s self-adulation?
And then there is his exploitation of military personnel. He bestowed the Congressional Medal of Honor on Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover, almost pornographically describing the man’s wounds in a helicopter assault in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Deserved as that medal was — and Slover did indeed act heroically — one wonders if this was more about Trump basking again in reflected glory. After all, Trump ordered the assault.
He also bestowed the medal on retired Navy Capt. E. Royce Williams, a Navy fighter pilot who flew in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Recall that Trump dodged military service repeatedly during Vietnam, getting a doctor’s note about bone spurs.
“I’ve always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself,” Trump said. “And I wouldn’t know why I would be taking it. If they ever open up that law, I will be with you someday.”
A bad joke?
That wasn’t the first time that Trump — who has also chased after a Nobel Peace Prize — has suggested he should get the Medal of Honor. He made the same quip on Feb. 19 in a speech in Georgia.
“I decided to go to Iraq. I was extremely brave. So brave in fact that I wanted to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor,” Trump said, referring to a 2018 trip there. “I said to my people, am I allowed to give myself the Congressional Medal of Honor? And you know, I’ve given out so many to guys that are seriously brave. I mean, they come in and their arms are missing, their legs are missing. Their stories are so unbelievable. And I said that’s a little stretch if I gave myself one.”
Sound presidential? Even if the notoriously humorless Trump was attempting a wisecrack, where is his sense of taste and timing? Also, there is no “Congressional” in the award’s name, something Trump should know.
What’s more, other presidents have seen such medal presentations as solemn White House affairs. Trump, in contrast, seems to see them as chances to glorify himself and, via the annual address, garner distracting TV time.
Worryingly, Trump’s invocations of military heroism now sit against the backdrop of potential war with Iran — something about which he said precious little. After his Maduro adventure and an earlier attack on Iran, the huge armada assembled within striking distance of that country must give us all pause.
Surely, Trump’s hucksterism, distractions and pandering will play well with some of his diehard backers. As other talented salesmen have noted, suckers are born every minute.
For most Americans, however, his act is wearing thin. Assuredly, Drew Carey has little to worry about. The rest of us just need to find a way to soldier on for another three years and still more State of the Union shows.