I'm Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 15 minutes.

Revisit the 2024 election.

With President Trump reviewing his first year in office in his State of the Union address, we’re taking the moment to look back at the decision that brought him there. We followed five undecided voters leading up to the 2024 presidential election, tracking their thoughts and opinions on the issues as they weighed their options. In a special podcast-only edition, we brought these voters back to review their choices.

You can listen to our special epilogue edition of The Undecideds here.

Quick hits.

1. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe briefed top Congressional leaders on U.S. relations with Iran as President Donald Trump reportedly weighs military action against the country. (The briefing)
2. The Pentagon said that the U.S. military seized a ship in the Indian Ocean allegedly linked to illicit oil shipments out of Venezuela. It was the third such ship seizure carried out under sanctions imposed by President Trump. (The seizure)
3. The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 that the U.S. Postal Service cannot be sued over mail that was intentionally misdelivered. The case centered on a dispute between a landlord and postal workers in Texas. (The ruling)
4. The Trump administration is reportedly considering executive action to require banks to collect citizenship information from customers. (The report)
5. The House failed to pass a bill that would require aircraft operators to equip aircraft with a safety system that broadcasts the craft’s precise location, altitude, and speed. The bill, which the Senate passed unanimously in December, was introduced in the wake of the January 2025 air accident in Washington, D.C. that killed 67 people. The Pentagon reportedly raised last-minute objections to some of its provisions. (The vote)

Today’s topic.

Trump’s State of the Union address. On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump delivered the first State of the Union address of his second term (Trump addressed a joint session of Congress last year, but it was not an official State of the Union). During the speech, Trump focused predominantly on domestic issues, but said that he would “never” allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. His speech lasted approximately one hour and 48 minutes, surpassing last year’s speech as the longest presidential address to Congress in modern history.  

Trump awarded civilian and military honors throughout the speech. Early on, the president recognized members of the U.S. Olympic men’s hockey team, which defeated Canada to win the gold medal on Sunday, and announced that he will award goaltender Connor Hellebuyck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Later in the speech, Trump recognized Andrew Wolfe and the late Sarah Beckstrom, the two National Guard members shot in Washington, D.C. last November, and awarded both Purple Hearts. He also awarded Medals of Honor to Army Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover, who was injured during the military operation to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, and E. Royce Williams, a veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.

The President advocated for several policies during the address. He called on Congress to pass the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would prohibit members of Congress and certain family members from purchasing individual publicly traded stocks. Later, Trump called on the Senate to approve the SAVE America Act, which would require people to provide certain government-issued identification when registering to vote, saying that Democrats only oppose the bill because “they want to cheat” in elections.

Trump also touted several of his accomplishments as president, including the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the approval of a $1,776 Warrior Dividend to members of the armed forces, and his role in negotiating peace treaties. He also announced that Vice President JD Vance would lead a “war on fraud,” specifically referencing fraud allegations against members of the Somali community in Minnesota.  

Congressional Democrats clashed with Trump at multiple points during the speech. As Trump entered the chamber, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) held up a sign reading “Black people aren’t apes”; Green was later ejected from the chamber. Reps. Ilhan Omar (MN) and Rashida Tlaib (MI) shouted condemnations at Trump before leaving the chamber. 

Afterwards, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger delivered the official Democratic response to Trump’s address, criticizing the president’s handling of the economy and immigration and touting Democrats’ performance in elections since Trump took office. On the other side of the aisle, Republicans broadly praised Trump’s address. Sen. Lindsey Graham (SC) called the speech “compelling,” saying it was “a breathtaking summary of the most successful first year of any president in modern history.” 

We’ll get into what the right and left are saying about Trump’s State of the Union address below. Then, Executive Editor Isaac Saul gives his take.

What the right is saying.

• The right mostly praises Trump’s speech, with many saying he focused on a winning message.
• Some criticize Democrats’ response to the portions on immigration.
• Others say Trump reminded the country of why he was elected. 

In The Free Press, Eli Lake said Trump “tried to reset his presidency by returning to a winning formula.”

“Watching President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday, you wouldn’t know that his approval ratings had plummeted and his party was facing the prospect of a walloping in the midterm elections. The Trump that addressed Congress Tuesday night was the happy warrior who won the 2024 election by exploiting the unpopular positions of his Democratic opponents with a mix of scowls and smiles,” Lake wrote. “Trump, the salesman, was selling the first year of his second presidency. ‘Our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before,’ he said.”

“Trump was seeking to expose the extreme views of his opposition in his section on immigration. In this regard, his State of the Union speech may be a political reset. Trump was trying to remind Americans why a majority of them voted for him in 2024,” Lake wrote. “Trump, at the end of the day, was selling himself. The country is doing better than ever because of his policies, he said. So he focused on issues where he thinks that he and his party have a natural advantage: gender ideology, border security, crime, and blue-collar jobs.”

In PJ Media, Matt Margolis described the moment that “lost the Democrats the midterms.”

“[Trump said,] ‘The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.’ Republicans exploded. They stood, clapped, and whistled for a solid two minutes. It was the kind of raw, spontaneous reaction you can’t manufacture. Democrats didn’t move,” Margolis wrote. “Illegal immigration was one of the defining issues of the 2024 election. And yet, on national television, with the whole country tuned in, Democratic lawmakers couldn’t bring themselves to affirm that the government’s first job is to protect their own constituents over illegal immigrants.

“This wasn’t a political miscalculation on their part; it was a confession. Republicans have been accusing Democrats of prioritizing illegals over American citizens for years, and Trump handed them an opportunity to prove them wrong, and they didn’t take it. They couldn’t do it, so they handed Republicans a huge gift for the upcoming midterm elections,” Margolis said. “Trump baited them, and they took the bait. He knew they wouldn’t stand, and now the whole country knows that the only people Democrats stand for are illegal immigrants.”

In The Daily Signal, Jarrett Stepman praised Trump’s message of “common sense.”

“Despite the decade-long attempt to portray him as a deranged and illegitimate shock to the system, it’s Trump who is bringing back normalcy as Democrats descend into madness. On point after point, Trump delivered factual assessments about where the country is compared to a few years ago,” Stepman wrote. “He noted that crime and inflation are down, American savings accounts are up, and our enemies are on their back heels as opposed to being on the march. At every turn, as Trump pointed out, Democrats have punted in their responsibilities to protect and represent the American people.”

“Trump also made it clear that if his opponents on the left retake federal power, they will immediately return to the ruinous open borders and many other terrible policies that Americans voted against in 2024,” Stepman said. “Whatever one can say about the state of the union, Trump’s leadership, America’s place in the world, it’s hard to imagine how much worse things would be under the renewed tyranny of Democrat theater kids.”

What the left is saying.

• The left is critical of the address, calling out Trump’s distortions about the state of the country. 
• Some say the president scapegoated immigrants to dodge blame for his failures.
• Others suggest Trump’s attempt at optimism fell flat. 

In MS NOW, Hayes Brown described “the dark tension at the heart of Trump’s State of the Union.”

“The shell of the speech that Trump delivered was almost anodyne compared to some of the more meandering and sharp-edged addresses he’s delivered over the years. While he injected plenty of his own asides into the already lengthy text, the core theme — in brief, that America is doing greater than ever — shone through despite a lack of facts to back him up. There were only a handful of new policy announcements,” Brown wrote. “Instead, a massive stretch of Trump’s speech was focused on feel-good moments… In Trump’s telling, the economy is booming, Americans are safer than ever, the world is bending toward peace and it’s all thanks to him.”

“But even when speaking of unbridled prosperity, Trump couldn’t help but highlight the supposed dangers still lurking around every corner. In anecdote after anecdote, the president chose to highlight tragic deaths and murders in his bid to paint immigrants as violent and Democrats as complicit,” Brown said. “It’s a tension that undercuts his positive message while drawing more focus on the abuses of Americans’ rights that Trump has authorized. As much as Trump wants to present America as a utopia under his benevolent rule, there is no need for a dictator without a healthy dose of fear among the populace.”

In The Guardian, Moira Donegan wrote “Trump has lost the ability to entertain. Sadly, he hasn’t lost the ability to offend.”

“Throughout the speech, Trump seemed tired. He had difficulty reading from his teleprompter; he gripped the podium with a tightness bordering on desperation, and towards the end of the broadcast, his voice became audibly raspy,” Donegan said. “The address touched on Trump’s typical themes: the supposed criminality and inferiority of immigrants; the mendaciousness of his opponents; his personal virtues and resentments. But the president offered very few new policy ideas, contradicted himself on crucial issues, misrepresented pertinent facts, and substantively addressed few of what polls reveal to be the nation’s most pressing concerns.”

“He has not, of course, lost the ability to offend… Trump spent a large swath of his speech attacking immigrants, who he smeared in terms that evoked the algorithm-driven social media where he spends so much of his time,” Donegan said. “Perhaps most galling of all, he blamed immigrants — in particular, the Somali-American population in Minnesota — for importing corruption to the United States… However it is Trump, not any Somali immigrant, who has repeatedly concocted thin pretexts to accept large sums of money from rich people and companies with business before his administration.”

In The Daily Beast, David Gardner argued “Trump’s game show speech can’t get him out of jeopardy.”

“With his perma-tan and showman’s smirk, Donald Trump tried every trick in the book to win over the country. Come on in. Come on down. You get a Purple Heart. You get this, you get that. Stand up if you believe in America, and shame on you if you sit on your hands,” Gardner said. “With his popularity plummeting and his signature tariff policy in ruins, the president needed a ratings triumph. No TV man likes a drop in the polls. But he came off a little too desperate. Even his attacks on the Democrats were tamer than in the firebrand first few months.”

“His attempt to taunt Democrats by urging lawmakers to stand if they believed the first duty of government was to protect Americans over undocumented immigrants came off as cheesy. He kept shaking his head and looking mock disgusted while the Republicans in the audience tried to work out when they could stop clapping,” Gardner wrote. “Perhaps he thought that if he stayed in the game long enough, he would win the prize. But Trump should have known that the first law of showbusiness is to leave when you’re on top.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• Despite the obvious theater of the speech, I thought this was an important moment for Trump to send a message about his first year.
• I was genuinely surprised by the address’s violent language.
• He was at times unifying but mostly divisive, and I expect this performance won’t help Republicans. 

Executive Editor Isaac Saul: Typically, I don’t give much credence to the importance of a State of the Union address, and I don’t suspect these addresses move the electorate much. 

Over time, these nights have become pure theater, with each side trying to plant memorable lines or use symbolic optics to make the other party look bad. There’s jeering, cheering, booing, clapping, and special guests meant to evoke or provoke. There are exaggerations, gratuitous lies, and misleading statistics that frame a party’s successes as the greatest ever — especially with our current president. Last night was no different: In discussing economic indicators, wars ended, prescription drug prices, tariffs and illegal voting, Trump told all manner of self-aggrandizing lies and exaggerations (in one particularly brazen moment, President Trump announced retirement savings accounts that were signed into law by President Biden in 2022). 

Yet, even with all those reasons to discount it, this State of the Union address felt like it mattered more than most. Despite a governing trifecta, Trump’s back is against the wall. His approval ratings are underwater. He’s in the midst of a Homeland Security funding fight, in which the public appears to be siding with Democrats. He just spent time in Georgia, in a deep-red county of a historically red state, pitching voters on how he’s addressing affordability. Democrats have had a series of mind-boggling overperformances in recent special elections, including last night in Pennsylvania. And this speech provided him with one of his last chances to address voters nationally before November’s midterms. 

And so, last night, Trump once again ascended the Congressional dais, needing to reset the narrative and get back in the driver’s seat. I suspected he would emphasize his economic successes, the declining murder rate, the border being shut down, the wars he’s working to end, and tie in an aspirational and uplifting vision of America with our 250th anniversary on the horizon. All of that would have been reasonable and based in fact — many, many good things are happening in our country that Trump could have spent his entire speech focused on. 

Last year, Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress was all about ending the war in Ukraine, bringing Israeli hostages home, making America affordable again, planting an American flag on Mars, shutting down the border, all manner of tax cuts, and the renewal of the American dream.

This year, I was genuinely surprised by how morbid so much of the speech was. I’ve watched every State of the Union address for the last 15 years, start to finish, and hundreds of Trump speeches (including his address in Georgia last week). I’ve never seen him so repeatedly and thoroughly focus on violence, death, blood, guts, and gore. 

There were the “murderous drug cartels,” “murderers” coming here illegally from “mental institutions,” the “terrorists and murderers” DHS is protecting us from, and Charlie Kirk being “violently murdered by an assassin.” There were the “murderous [Iranian] proxies” and the Iranian regime itself, which has “spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate” and “killed and maimed” thousands of Americans. There were the Iranian protesters, “shot” and “hung” in the streets. Trump described Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe being “violently shot in the head… laying helplessly in bed, blood all over.” There was Chief Warrant Officer 5, Eric Slover, “gushing blood, which was flowing back down the [helicopter] aisle,” after being shot during an operation in Venezuela, his leg “shredded into numerous pieces.” 

There was the 16-year-old cheerleader, Lizbeth Medina, who was “violently and viciously” killed, “brutally extinguished” by a “killer” and “illegal alien.” Her mother found her “lying dead in a bathtub bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 times,” Trump said. Describing Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee killed on a bus in Charlotte last year, Trump said a “deranged monster… viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.” As the camera panned to Zarutska’s weeping mother in the audience, Trump added that “no one will ever forget” the “expression of terror on Iryna’s face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life. She died instantly.”

It went on and on like this for the entire night, and it struck me as deeply uncomfortable and awful to watch. This emphasis did not make me feel good, nor did it make me feel angry or motivated in a way that felt “productive,” which I might have if Trump followed these descriptions with a message about how we might overcome all this horror. When I ran the transcript of Trump’s speech through ChatGPT, it said roughly 40-50% of the speech was about violence, crime, or war; when I asked it to break down the speech by section, it said up to 70% of Trump’s topics included violent rhetoric. To take just one example, Trump used the words “murder,” “murderer(s),” or “murderous” nine times — just two of the nine references were him describing the historic drop in murders over the last year. 

From a simple messaging standpoint, this choice felt odd and counterproductive. Trump is supposed to be the president “ending eight wars” (this claim is still not true) and bringing peace to the streets, yet the free world he describes himself as overseeing has terror and death lurking on every corner of every continent. The tone, even for Trump, felt especially morbid — and wildly afield from how a president might convince the nation things aren’t as bad as they think.

That’s not to say the speech was totally bereft of effective moments. The closing was a genuinely moving recounting of the beauty of the American project, the relatively brief and delicate span of our nation’s history, and the limitless potential of American citizens (so moving to me that I messaged my team on Slack and asked, “Where has this been all night?”). He honored several heroes throughout the evening and at times referenced the falling rates of violence, fentanyl use, and even Americans on food stamps under his administration.

Perhaps most notably, and in the moment that will surely show up in political ads later this year, Trump asked all in the chamber who believe “the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens” to stand. Nearly every Democrat I could see (on television) remained seated. Of course, I suspect most of them believe the sentiment but just want to resist Trump’s games — yet the optics are terrible for the party. 

This kind of open combat in the chamber is where Trump excels, and where he seems to be most comfortable. And when he wasn’t describing murderous scenes of violence, he seemed most comfortable provoking his opponents. He dragged Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar into the fight with a long section on the “Somali pirates” in Minnesota. Both Tlaib and Omar left the speech after heckling and shouting that the president “killed American citizens.” Republicans started a “USA!” chant in response to Rep. Al Green, who was holding up a sign that read “Black people aren’t apes.” Trump repeatedly pointed to the seated Democrats who refused to stand and clap for all manner of positive updates about the country, calling them “crazy” and “sick.” Obviously, the tenor of these exchanges reflects just how divided and broken our politics are, and our president appears continuously thrilled at the prospect of further driving the wedge between red and blue.

This is all unfortunate, given how much opportunity Trump had to go in a different direction. Some important economic indicators are strong. The border is secure. Genuine peacemaking efforts are proliferating across the globe. And on the heels of the Olympics, American pride is bursting, with the ice hockey gold medals and the unifying force of figure skater Alyssa Liu. Even in crude political terms, Trump had opportunities. Just take the juxtaposition of him bringing the men’s hockey team and war heroes to the chamber as his guests, while Democrats invited an alleged victim of Jeffrey Epstein who also allegedly helped Epstein traffic women. 

It’s not as if Trump doesn’t know how to foster bipartisan unity. He received a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle when he explicitly rejected political violence in all its forms, citing the murder of Charlie Kirk. He also got an enthusiastic ovation, with notable applause from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), when he called for a ban on congressional stock trading. I could be a cynic and point to Trump’s own corruption and self-dealing, or expound on the dig he took at Nancy Pelosi immediately after, but the point is that he knows how to foster this kind of unity. Most of the time, he chooses not to.

But when I think about this speech, those moments won’t stay in my mind — nor will Democrats refusing to stand when prompted to pledge their allegiance to American citizens. Instead, I’ll remember the tension, gore, and combat. If this was a speech meant to focus Americans on how much better their lives have gotten in the last year, and why we should punch the ballot for Republicans this fall to continue to empower this president, it struck me as inexplicably counterproductive.

I still don’t think this address will move the electoral needle, but my guess is that if it does, it won’t be in the president’s favor. 

Take the survey: What do you think of Trump’s address? Let us know.

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Further reading.

In lieu of a reader question today, we want to offer more analysis on some of the key issues Trump mentioned in his address last night. We don’t have space to go into full detail on these topics or fact-check all the president’s claims, so we’re providing links below to in-depth coverage of these issues over the past year. 

Securing the Southern border. 

• Executive orders in January, 2025
• Deportations in June, 2025 
• Immigration raids in July, 2025

Lowering crime.

• The Charlotte stabbing in September, 2025 
• The declining murder rate in February, 2026

Controlling inflation.

• The Fed’s rate cut in September, 2025
• The affordability debate in November, 2025 
• Kevin Warsh’s nomination in February, 2026

Implementing tariffs.

• The trade deal with Europe in July, 2025
• The jobs numbers in September, 2025
• SCOTUS striking down “reciprocal tariffs” in February, 2026

Ending DEI.

• A special round-up edition in February, 2025
• The Pentagon firings in February, 2025
• The Harvard–Trump standoff in April, 2025

Pushing for the SAVE America Act. 

• The SAVE Act in September, 2024
• A deep dive on the SAVE Act in April, 2025 
• Addressed in a reader question in February, 2026

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reportedly told the CEO of artificial intelligence company Anthropic that he has until Friday to give the U.S. military full access to its AI product or face significant penalties. Anthropic’s Claude is the only AI model used in classified military systems, and Hegseth has requested that the military receive unrestricted access. Anthropic has said it will work to tailor Claude to the military’s needs, but the company maintained that it won’t allow the model to be used for mass surveillance in the United States or the development of autonomous weapons. If the company does not meet the Friday deadline, Hegseth reportedly said the Defense Department will end its military contract or invoke the Defense Production Act to force its compliance. Axios has the story.

Numbers.

• 1 hour, 48 minutes. The approximate length of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union (SOTU) address on Tuesday, the longest SOTU in U.S. history.
• 1 hour, 28 minutes. The length of President Bill Clinton’s 2000 SOTU address, the second-longest in U.S. history.
• 28 minutes, 55 seconds. The length of President Richard Nixon’s 1972 SOTU address, the shortest in U.S. history.
• 9. The number of times Trump mentioned “illegal aliens” in his speech.
• 6. The number of times Trump mentioned the economy in his speech.
• 4. The number of times Trump mentioned former President Joe Biden in his speech.

The extras.

• One year ago today we covered Elon Musk’s email to federal workers.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the ad in the free version for The Penny Hoarder.
• Nothing to do with politics: Enjoy sunsets, enjoy no natural enemies, and chill with this capybara simulator.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,743 readers responded to our survey on Mexican counter-cartel strategy with 61% saying they should combat cartels through whatever means necessary. “The cartels have evolved from crime organizations into para-militaries that occupy parts of the country. A military response is appropriate,” one respondent said. “Track down financial interconnections and shutdown and prosecute facilitators,” said another.

Have a nice day.

In 2020, Jennifer Durham became a professor at the Rutgers School of Psychology. The achievement was another chapter in the Durham family’s historic relationship with the school — Durham and her mother, Inez Phillips Durham, became the first mother-daughter duo to earn PhDs from the School of Psychology when Jennifer earned her degree in 1992. Inez earned her doctorate in 1984, all while working as a single mother supporting her daughter, who was often seen working on her homework in the science library while her mother did her research. “I prayed every day for the determination to get that degree. It wasn’t easy, but we managed. I say ‘we’ because Jennifer had to be more independent,” Inez said. “One of our main things is service. Always, always, always give back,” Jennifer said. “That was core to who she is and she passed that on to me.” People has the story.