This morning, NPR reported that DOJ withheld “some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor,” based upon review of document sets that revealed there were dozens of pages DOJ had indexed but not included in its public release. Release of those files is required by the Epstein Transparency Act. NPR says that they include “what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.” It was not an auspicious lead-in to Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, which he delivered this evening. He never acknowledged the Epstein survivors who were in the chamber. In Donald Trump’s world, federal agents didn’t kill Renee Good and Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis or arrest five-year-old Liam Ramos.
The headline for the speech? It was long and boring. Mediocre is a good way to characterize it. Trump didn’t have a stirring message or even just a nominally cohesive one to deliver. If you weren’t already in Trump’s camp, it’s unlikely you are now. Instead, he seemed to luxuriate in the spotlight like a show-off kid with a captive audience. Finally, it ended. I know I wasn’t the only one giving thanks. Trump seemed to stay mostly on his teleprompter. But the speech was full of lies—so obvious that we all caught them as they came out of his mouth, especially his claims about the economy, which were so off base that even his own folks cannot have missed them. We got an early answer to who on the Supreme Court would brave Trump’s ire over their tariffs decision earlier this week. Only Justices Roberts, Kagan, Kavanaugh, and Barrett showed up. Trump shook hands with them as he entered the chamber, but it wasn’t last year’s “thanks, I won’t forget it”-style shoulder slapping. It was much more perfunctory, and from the angle I saw it appeared that he may have skipped Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the majority that ruled against him. HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy looked pretty good for someone who recently acknowledged snorting cocaine off of a toilet seat. MSNOW anchor Stephanie Ruhle provided some sobering context, pointing out that Trump and his family will make over a billion dollars this term Congressman Al Green, who was censured last year for shouting at Trump that he didn’t have a mandate and brandishing his cane, was ejected from the chamber again this year, for holding up a sign that said that said “Black people aren’t apes.” Trump: “Our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before … this is the golden age of America.” Trump claimed that he inherited a broken nation but that now “a transformation like no one has ever seen before … a turnaround for the ages” is underway. He said “the economy is roaring like never before” and claimed we are respected in the world. In other words, the lies came fast and thick, and Republicans jumped to their feet to cheer them. “What a difference a president makes … now we’re the hottest country in the world. The hottest.” If you had to take a drink every time he told the truth, you would have stayed sober. “Members of Congress, the state of our union is strong.” He went on to claim there was so much winning that people were begging him for less of it. Just when he got to the point where I thought we were surely in “and then a man came up to me with tears in his eyes and said, Sir,” territory, Trump had the Men’s Olympic hockey team walk in with their USA sweaters on and their medals around their necks, diminishing the shine on those medals with their wearers’ willingness to be paraded on cue for political effect. Trump shouted out the women’s team and said, “they’ll soon be coming to the White House.” No, pal. No, they won’t. “All Democrats, every single one of them” voted against tax cuts, Trump said. That’s true. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill benefits the wealthy to the detriment of others, and Democrats opposed it. But Trump claimed that Democrats wanted large scale tax increases to hurt people, which of course, isn’t true. Trump called out some supposed accomplishments of the bill, like ending taxes on tips, but failed, predictably, to acknowledge its faults or own the fact that it benefits the very wealthy, but hurts the rest of us. Trump continues to live in a magic fantasyland where stuff becomes true just because he says it is. In a more comical moment, Trump claimed he didn’t come up with the name “Trump Accounts.” I guess he was too busy putting the finishing touches on the newly renamed Trump Kennedy center All in all, Trump used a lot of words to say very little. I watched him while posting on Substack Notes and chatting in the app with y’all, and it was pretty wonderful being in community with fierce people who didn’t mince words. Honestly, I paid more attention to your comments than to Trump for much of the time because you were smarter and a lot funnier. Tariffs. They were great, per Trump. No inflation/tremendous growth. Trump said that he called the economy better than 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics and called the Supreme Court’s tariffs ruling “unfortunate” as four stone-faced justices sat ramrod straight. Trump claimed he settled wars because of tariffs, that he couldn’t have done it without them. He said that he believed that tariffs paid for by foreign countries will substantially “replace” the system of income tax taking a “terrible burden” off of “the people that I love.” The last bit must have been a reference to the very wealthy, because tariffs seem to be hurting most people. “I love America” Trump said, but then he snarled, and it didn’t really look like love. It was not a speech designed to bring Americans together. Trump called Biden corrupt and Democrats liars. “You knew you lied,” the liar said. Republicans cheered him. Trump apparently thinks that if he lies enough about the economy people will believe him. Mortgages are suddenly more affordable, according to the president. Eggs more affordable. And Trump claimed he will solve insurance issues by giving money to people and “it will be much better health care at a much lower cost.” Sure, that was substantive. Someone weighed in on the chat to call it a bunch of “happy horseshit.” Then, Trump found something Democrats could agree with. He said that members of Congress shouldn’t be able to benefit from insider information, and he called for passage of the Stop Insider Trading Act. That brought Elizabeth Warren to her feet. Trump talked about the corruption that is “plundering America” with a straight face. Trump is really boring when you come right down to it. He’s predictable. Everyone knows you can’t take what he says seriously. His words are hollow and empty, and it’s very unlikely they can move the needle that shows him with support from only 20% of Americans. The president told Democrats they should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up. At one point he talked about ending sanctuary cities as Ilan Omar repeatedly shouted out “You are a murderer” and “You have killed Americans!” Then, predictably, we were on to the SAVE Act to address “illegal aliens” (I would just say “people”) voting, which of course they don’t do and certainly not in the kind of numbers that could change the outcome of elections. Nothing close. Trump said people need ID “for the greatest privilege of them all, voting”—though voting is a right, not a privilege—and that in order to correct rampant cheating (it’s not), the simple solution is that “all voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote.” He called for an end to mail-in ballots unless you’re sick or traveling. But we all know the SAVE Act is about suppressing the vote, not preventing fraud. If you missed Stacey Abrams’ and my conversation on Saturday, unraveling the myth that ID is necessary because of election fraud, this might be a good time to go watch it. We shredded that myth point by point. Trump never offers any evidence of fraud, let alone fraud that would be defeated by requiring the kinds of enhanced idea that would costs tens of thousands of Americans their right to vote. Honestly, it just all ran together. It was a speech without a message. Trump never got out of first gear. He went on and on, ignoring the obvious, lying about his accomplishments, and it never became something of significance. There’s a reason Trump’s approval rating is hanging around 20%. He’s boring. And not particularly competent. And that’s becoming increasingly apparent. I watched it—the whole thing—so you didn’t have to, although I’m grateful for the many of you who did. There was a lesson in that. Watching this alone would have been depressing. Being in community, even just online, made it tolerable, made it possible to watch and see just how ineffectual and ineffective this president is. I’m grateful for that. Thank you for being a part of Civil Discourse. We’re in this together, Joyce You're currently a free subscriber to Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance . For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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Tuesday, February 24, 2026
SOTU
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