A quick word after President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress this week: It was joyous, rollicking, and yes substantive—but too short! Check that: He could have snipped a bit at the end—he went past his best ending—but it was terrific, and worth every minute. Trump said that he was sending a message, asking Congress “to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on youth and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. … And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect the way God made you.” Ronald Reagan could have said that, and so could George W. Bush; but the matter didn’t arise in their time. The occasion came only now, in our own day, and Trump, God bless him, took the moment to say it.
The commentators, following the address, were missing the importance of the stories of the people in the gallery. Harold Ford said that the stories didn’t help to bring the country together. He completely missed the point: the stories showed the courage of the American people, even as they have suffered tragic losses. He brought out again the strength and devotion of the American people. Charles Kesler caught the matter simply a while back: Trump really thinks that the American people are a beautiful people, who have had the deep luck of basing their political lives on principles of common sense that are beautiful. And, in his own, Catskill-bantering way, Trump imparts that.
The only touch I would have added would have come as he drew out the string of those wacky projects in foreign aid, with millions spent to promote LBGT and DEI abroad, with transgendered mice. What I would have done was asked: How many plumbers and construction workers and teachers—how many people giving up $15,000 or $20,000 of their modest income in taxes—how many of them would you have taxed to spend on things of this kind? It’s a farce and disgrace that just hits one in the face.
After all of this, what are the Democrats going to say—that the price of eggs may still be high? That an inflation they built up over 4 years has not been brought down in 6 weeks? I heard that they resisted just this week in Congress the move to ban men from women’s sports. In other words, Democrats are so dug in that they cannot see through it any longer.
I would have had Trump bring that up and say: If that is what you’re willing to run on, we will meet you often at that spot. That is the hill you’re going to be dying on in 2026.
