Kyle Cave
Staff Writer
Traditionally, State of the Union addresses in this country are a way for a president to lay out their political agenda for months or years to come. You get a sense of what to expect moving forward. Instead, Donald Trump spent his State of the Union address increasing division, giving out awards and stating many falsehoods regarding just about every single issue.
On the economy, Trump enthusiastically gave himself a victory lap on his tariff policy. He said various things on the economy, including that foreign countries pay for the U.S. tariffs. This is a false statement; tariffs are paid by American consumers and have been costing Americans money. According to Goldman Sachs, over the course of 10 months, tariffs added a 0.7 percentage point increase in inflation.
On immigration, Trump also stated many falsehoods. Trump said his administration was mostly deporting individuals with a criminal record. This is also not true. According to The New York Times, only 11% of those deported by ICE in each month had violent convictions. This speech was made in the aftermath of the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings. Trump, during The State of the Union gave no acknowledgement of their deaths.
Aliyah Rahman, a disabled woman who was dragged out of her vehicle last month by ICE attended the address. Rahman was arrested for “disruption of Congress.”
In almost every major poll over the last month, Trump is underwater on every issue. In fact, the very issue Trump ran on, which was the economy, he is underwater on. In the latest CNN poll it shows Trump with a 60% disapproval rating among Americans. With only a 38% percent approval rating.
Presidents who have lower approval ratings will usually try to do everything they can to try to get the American people back on their side by making them feel heard and seen. Trump is not doing that; instead, he is using the strategy of “if I say it enough times, people will believe me.”
The one thing that is guaranteed with American voters is that when the economic conditions are bad, they will let you know at the ballot box. No matter who is in power, if economic conditions aren’t good the president and the people in power are getting blamed.
A lot of the time, economic conditions are complicated and aren’t controlled by whoever is in power. Regardless, presidents or parties get blamed anyway.
Presidents simply cannot just lie their way to good approval ratings. It’s one thing to be sympathetic to Americans’ situations and let the people know you understand and feel their pain, but if you are actively saying something everyone knows is not the case, and you constantly insist that your skewed point of view is fact, that will anger Americans. At any chance they get they will vote you or your party out.
Trump often thinks his MAGA base is the only base he must answer to. Every president wants to act out on their ideology to a degree. Politicians can get away with a lot of things, but in a democracy, there is one thing they cannot get away from, and that’s the voters.
With the midterms just 8 months away, it’s very unlikely that Trump will do a different strategy than he is doing now. With the poll numbers and dissatisfaction, anyone can predict the likely outcome to happen next. Trump will try to escape this phenomenon, but the voters will have their final verdict in November.
Fact Check: https://www.cnn.com/2026/02/24/politics/fact-check-state-of-the-union