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SCMP Reporters

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US President Donald Trump delivered the traditional State of the Union address to a divided Congress, reviewing his first year in office and outlining priorities ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
In the longest speech of its kind, Trump spoke of a “golden age of America”, saying “America is respected again, perhaps like never before”.
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United States

Trump makes fun of Chinese military tech in State of the Union speech – as it happened

US President Donald Trump gives his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington on Tuesday. Photo: AP

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It is the first speech of US president’s second term and highly anticipated


It is the first speech of US president’s second term and highly anticipated.


Live

Trump will deliver his first official State of the Union address of his second term in a few minutes, addressing a joint session of Congress against a backdrop of economic challenges, foreign policy tensions and political divisions.
This speech comes roughly 13 months into his return to office, following his 2024 election victory. Trump has teased that it will be a lengthy address, potentially breaking records, as he has “so much to talk about”.
The speech is expected to serve as a platform to highlight achievements, defend policies, and rally support for Republicans to maintain control of Congress.
A major focus will be Trump defending his tariffs – despite recent Supreme Court setbacks – as well as the president touting reduced trade deficits, job reshoring and manufacturing booms. Expect pledges to cut food and petrol prices, lower energy costs, build factories and ease regulations.
Trump has described his policies as ushering in a “2026 Golden Age”.



First SOTU, second term

The White House has released excerpts from Trump’s highly anticipated State of the Union address.
In the speech, the president frames his first year back in office as a historic “transformation”.
“Tonight, after just one year, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before ... We will never go back to where we were just a short time ago,” he plans to tell the nation.
Beyond economics, the speech signals a shift toward a more aggressive posture on regional stability.
Trump will describe “large parts of Mexico” as being under the control of murderous cartels, casting his “America first” policy as essential to US security and influence in the western hemisphere.
“We are also restoring American security and dominance in the western hemisphere – acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism and foreign interference. For years, large swathes of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.”



White House releases excerpts

Tradition allows the president, first lady and lawmakers to bring guests to the State of the Union address. Who’s invited and by whom carries a lot of meaning, as the guests tend to reflect priorities and policies. They sit in special galleries above the House floor and are sometimes recognised by the president during his speech.
This year’s guest list includes the crew of Nasa’s planned lunar mission Artemis II, invited by House Speaker Mike Johnson and the US men’s ice hockey team who won gold at the recent Winter Olympics in Italy. President Trump sent a special plane to South Florida to pick up the hockey players and hosted them in the White House in the hours before. The women’s team was also invited but declined due to “scheduling conflicts”.
Trump has also invited Erika Kirk, wife of late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and he’s expected to make reference to his assassination while calling on Congress to “firmly reject political violence against our fellow citizens,” according to the White House.
Several lawmakers have invited victims connected to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Haley Robson and Dani Bensky will attend as guests of Democratic Representative Ro Khanna and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. Schumer has also invited Raiza Contreras, the mother of Dylan Lopez Contreras, a Venezuelan high school student detained by ICE agents.
Among this year’s guests will also be Claire Lai, the daughter of jailed media boss Jimmy Lai, who was invited by Republican Representative Chris Smith.
Democratic Representative Mark Pocan invited Doug Rebout, a farmer and president of the Wisconsin Soybean Association. Soy farmers – typically a key constituency for Trump – have complained about the ripple effects of disruptions in trade with China.
First Lady Melania Trump is also bringing her own guests to the First Lady’s Box. She announced she invited Sierra Burns, a young woman who grew up in foster care, and Everest Nevraumont, a 10-year-old student and activist of responsible AI, as representatives of her “Be Best – Fostering the Future” initiative.



Invitation only

The speech is expected to run about two hours. Its drafting has been led by a tight-knit circle of long-time loyalists, with Ross Worthington, the White House director of speechwriting, serving as the main architect.
He has reportedly spent weeks meeting closely with aides.
Vince Haley, director of the Domestic Policy Council, and Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff for policy, have provided key guidance. The duo also played central roles in Trump’s most recent campaign, helping draft each of his speeches.
Preparations were reportedly complicated by a major legal setback to his sweeping tariffs just days before the address.
Trump is also expected to include some surprises. He is likely to announce a Medal of Honour award, the US military’s highest honour for valor in combat, for the first time during a State of the Union.



How Trump prepared

A hush falls over the House floor as justices of the Supreme Court of the United States enter the chamber.
Only four take their seats in the front row: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett – a noticeably small presence from the nine-member bench.
Their appearance comes just four days after the court’s consequential 6-3 ruling against Trump’s sweeping tariffs.
The decision sharply curtailed the president’s authority to impose global tariffs unilaterally under emergency executive powers.



4 justices attend

US First Lady Melania Trump enters the chamber escorted by her son, Barron.
She is greeted by applause from the attendants, particularly from Republican lawmakers.
The first lady has a designated box where she will watch the event. She is wearing a dark suit with a white shirt.



First lady enters

Trump enters the House chamber ahead of his 2026 State of the Union address, the first formal address to Congress of his second term, setting off a wave of applause from Republican lawmakers while drawing visible restraint from parts of the Democratic side.
Trump moves slowly down the aisle, shaking hands and greeting allies, as cameras tracked his every step in a moment heavy with political symbolism. He’s wearing a navy suit and a red tie.
He takes his place at the front of the chamber, flanked by Vice-President J.D. Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, pausing before formally beginning a speech expected to lay out his agenda and tone for the year ahead.
Congressman Al Green, representative from Texas, holds a sign saying, “Black people aren’t apes!”




Cheers, handshakes and tension as Trump arrives

The president’s address will be followed by a Democratic rebuttal. This year, the job, considered an honour due to the high-profile nature of the speech, was assigned to the newly elected governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger.
Spanberger is viewed as one of the party’s rising stars after winning November’s gubernatorial election with a campaign centered on affordability, a message Democrats are emphasising ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
“Governor Spanberger will lay out a clear path forward: lower everyday costs, protect healthcare, and defend the freedoms that define who we are as a nation,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said when announcing her selection.
Before being elected governor, Spanberger served six years in Congress and previously worked as a CIA officer.



Virginia governor for the rebuttal

Trump begins speaking in the House chamber, with chants of “USA! USA!” echoing from parts of the audience.
Lawmakers are seated and attentive as the president launches into the opening of his 2026 State of the Union address.
The atmosphere is a mix of applause and quiet observation, reflecting the divided reactions in the chamber.
“Our nation is back, bigger, better richer and stronger,” he says.



‘USA! USA!’ Trump takes the podium

Trump begins his 2026 State of the Union address.
He opens with a confident declaration:
“Our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger ... This is the golden age of America.”
He goes on to say: “I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before, and a turnaround for the ages.”
The remarks draw a standing ovation from Republican lawmakers.



Republican standing ovation

Several Democratic lawmakers will skip Trump’s address and instead attend the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall in Washington.
According to US media reports, nearly 70 lawmakers, mostly Democratic members of Congress, have said they will miss the State of the Union.
These include senators Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, and Adam Schiff of California, as well as progressive representatives Pramila Jayapal, Maxwell Frost and Greg Casar.
The “People’s State of the Union” is organised by progressive groups MeidasTouch and MoveOn.org. The event is expected to feature federal workers, immigrants, and others affected by Trump’s policies.



Democrats skip speech

“We have secured the southern border and, in the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States,” Trump says, drawing cheers from the chamber.
“But we will always allow people to come legally. People who love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.”



Border security

Trump pivots from the border to the pocketbook, delivering a series of rapid-fire economic statistics that have the Republican side of the chamber on their feet.
In a direct shot at the previous administration, he frames the current economy as a “roaring” comeback from what he terms a “disaster”.
“Inflation is plummeting, incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before, and our enemies are scared,” Trump says, leaning heavily into specific data from the tail end of 2025 to illustrate his “turnaround”.
He claims that while his predecessor oversaw “the worst inflation in history”, his administration has driven core inflation to its lowest level in over five years.
He notes that in the final three months of 2025, core inflation dropped to 1.7 per cent, a figure his advisers have been touting all week as proof that his deregulation blitz is working.
In what will likely be the most replayed clip of the night, Trump claims a dramatic drop in fuel prices.
“Gasoline ... is now below US$2.30 a gallon in most states ... and when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw US$1.85 a gallon for gasoline.”



‘Roaring’ economy, low inflation

“We just received more than 80 million barrels from our new friend, Venezuela,” Trump says, to a cheering chamber. “American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels per day.”
In January, the US president sent special forces to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, seizing control of the country’s oil industry.
Trump adds: “American natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to ‘drill, baby, drill’.”


Oil from Venezuela

In a classic display of Trumpian rhetoric, the president claims that Americans are actually begging him to stop winning.
“Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr President, we’re winning too much. We can’t take it any more ... and I say no, no, no, you’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re going to win bigger than ever!” he says before transitioning to a literal gold medal moment.
In a scene reminiscent of a championship rally, he introduces the US men’s Olympic ice hockey team, who arrived in Washington just hours ago via a military transport plane direct from the Milan-Cortina Games.
The chamber erupts as the players stand in the gallery. Just 48 hours ago, they defeated Canada 2-1 in a thrilling overtime final, securing the first US men’s hockey gold since the 1980.



‘Too much winning’ – and golden boys of winter

The atmosphere in the chamber turns ice-cold as Trump directly addresses the elephant in the room: the United States Supreme Court’s ruling last week that struck down his executive tariff powers.
In a moment of extraordinary political theatre, the president looks down from the rostrum at the four sitting justices, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, and delivers a sharp rebuke of the high court’s decision.
“Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars ... and yet, just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court. It just came down. Very unfortunate ruling,” he says.
Before raising the court ruling, Trump took a victory lap on the stock market, claiming his tariff-heavy agenda is the engine behind a “stunning economic turnaround”.
He took aim at his academic critics, mocking the 22 Nobel Prize-winning economists who signed a letter warning that his 2025 tariffs would ignite inflation.
“They got it really wrong,” Trump says, pointing to the 1.7 per cent inflation rate he cited earlier.



‘Unfortunate’ tariffs ruling

Trump introduces a major, first-of-its-kind policy at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the American utility bill. Addressing the soaring energy demands of artificial intelligence, he unveils the “ratepayer protection pledge”.
In a direct warning to big tech, he makes it clear: if you want the power for AI, you have to build the plants yourself.
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” he says.
“They can build their own power plants as part of the factory so that no one’s prices will go up ... in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community.”
Trump frames this as a necessary step to protect an ageing national infrastructure that he claims “could never handle” the massive load required by modern data centres.
He says that by forcing corporations to go “off-grid” or add new capacity, residents will see their electricity bills drop “very substantially”.



Big tech, ‘build your own power’

“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” Trump says to Democratic Party legislators who did not stand up and clap to his claim that “the first duty of the US government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens”.
“The only thing standing between Americans and an open border is President Donald Trump and patriots in Congress,” he says, demanding that Congress end the impasse around funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
Tensions seem to be rising in the chamber, with a few shouting “you’re killing Americans” and “Lies!” and one person holds a sign protesting against the ICE killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota while Trump touts his immigrant policies.




‘You should be ashamed’

Trump has been speaking for over an hour and shows no signs of slowing down.
After a fiery exchange over sanctuary cities and his “ashamed” rebuke of Democrats, the president seems energised and speaks with renewed intensity.
The energy of the Republican side remains high, fueled by “USA” chanting matches. Many members are still standing, treating the speech more like a campaign rally than a formal address.
The decorum of the House floor has completely fractured.
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, a Democrat from Michigan, yells: “Are you going to talk about the Epstein files?”
The “Epstein files” have remained a massive political football, with the Department of Justice under pressure to release a final set of unredacted flight logs.



One hour in

The atmosphere in the House Chamber reaches an emotional peak, momentarily silencing even Trump’s harshest critics.
As Trump calls for a national rejection of political violence, all eyes turn to Erika Kirk in the gallery.
The widow of Charlie Kirk is present, dressed in all black. The chamber rises in a standing ovation to honour her and her husband’s memory.
Charlie Kirk died in September 2025 during a campus tour event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
“We must all come together and say America is one nation under God and reject political violence of any kind,” Trump says.



Trump calls for unity, honours Charlie Kirk widow

Trump enters the final foreign policy part of his address, making sweeping claims about his role as a global mediator.
In a rapid-fire list, he says his administration has stopped or de-escalated eight major international conflicts since returning to power last year, including those between Cambodia and Thailand, and between Pakistan and India.
“Pakistan and India would have been a nuclear war – 35 million people, said the prime minister of Pakistan, would have died if it were not for my involvement,” Trump claims.
He describes a high-stakes phone call he reportedly made during the May 2025 “Operation Sindoor” military stand-off, when India launched strikes on what New Delhi alleges to be terror infrastructure in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“My first 10 months, I ended eight wars, including Cambodia,” he says.
Some Democrats laugh, and Trump says sharply that it’s not “funny”, calling them “sick people”.



India-Pakistan conflict

Trump stresses his resolve to tackle Iran’s nuclear programme.
He describes Iran as having “spread nothing but terrorism, death and hate” and as having killed thousands of American service members, saying he will “make peace wherever I can but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America”.
He also touts US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last year as a “breakthrough operation”.
“They have already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they are working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America,” Trump says.
“They were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons programme, in particular nuclear weapons. Yet they continue starting it all over,” he says, adding that Iran is pursuing “sinister ambitions”.
As US pushes for negotiations with Iran, Trump says his preference “is to solve this problem through diplomacy. But one thing is certain, I will never allow the world’s No 1 sponsor of terror … to have a nuclear weapon.
“And no nation should ever doubt America’s resolve. We have the most powerful military on Earth.”



Iran’s nuclear programme

Trump pokes fun at the Chinese military technology in use by the Venezuelan military at the time of the American operation to capture former president Nicolas Maduro.
“This was a major military installation, protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technologies. How did that go for them?” he said, referring to the January operation.
“American armed forces overwhelmed all defences of the enemy to end the reign of dictator Nicolas Maduro and bring him to justice,” he says. “This was an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the US and a bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela.”
Trump underlines collaboration from the government of Venezuela.
He also invited Enrique Marquez, a political prisoner recently released by the Delcy Rodriguez government, to the address as a surprise guest.



Making fun of Chinese military tech

For the key takeaways from US President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union address, read our report here.


Trump makes fun of Chinese military tech in State of the Union speech – as it happened

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}It is the first speech of US president’s second term and highly anticipated

It is the first speech of US president’s second term and highly anticipated