The Daily Signal - Victor Davis Hanson: Trump Laid Out America’s Comeback While Democrats Sat Silent

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address “was more of a variety show” than an address. By highlighting various “tragic cases,” Trump showed Americans two things: “We’re a wonderful patriotic country,” and Democrats’ policies caused some of the tragedies, explains Victor Davis Hanson on today’s episode of “Victor Davis Hanson: In a Few Words.” “They [Democrats] wouldn't stand for any applause, no matter what the topic was, or no matter whether they agreed with it. …  They were all a disaster, to be quite frank.” 👉 The Daily Signal cannot continue to tell stories, like this one, without the support of our viewers: http://dailysignal.com/donate  👉Don’t miss out on Victor’s latest short videos by subscribing to The Daily Signal today. You’ll be notified every time a new piece of content drops: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/dailysignal?sub_confirmation=1⁠   Also on Spotify: https://megaphone.link/THEDAILYSIGNAL9753340027   👉Want more VDH? Watch Victor’s weekly, hour-long podcast, “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words,” now! Subscribe to his YouTube channel, and enable notifications:  https://www.youtube.com/@victordavishanson7273?sub_confirmation=1  👉More exclusive content is available on Victor’s website: https://victorhanson.com 00:00 SOTU Or Variety Show 01:30 Economy Bullet Points 03:24 Democrats Boycott Backfires 05:49 Polls And Party Optics07:26 Closing Takeaways And 2026 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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whether it was the family that was impacted by the illegal alien truck driver or the sudden entry of the hockey team or the tragic killing of the Ukrainian immigrant on a train. It was all to show you two things that were a wonderful patriotic country and the policy. of the Democratic opposition had caused, in some cases, these tragedies. Hello, this is Victor Davis-Hansson for the Daily Signal. We had the State of the Union, as we all know on Tuesday. I think all of us were a little apprehensive when we were told it would be the longest state of the union. I happen to have watched Bill Clinton's 2000 State of the Union address.

I think it was an hour and 28 minutes. Trump was, depending on where you start. the actual measurement of the speech, I think it was about an hour and 48, 50 minutes, 20 to 25 minutes longer. Bill Clinton's was considered kind of a disaster. It was too long, and it was just what the Emperor Augustus called Res Guestai, just to recap of all the good things he's done. So when I heard that, it was a little upset, but when you looked at the actual speech, he got what he had to to cover the bullet points on the economy, and there are many. I mean, inflation in the last three months is way below 2%. And he inherited, remember, a 5.4, I think it's a 5.4 average inflation rate under Biden, 21, was 21 aggregate inflation over four years, divide by four. And GDP was very strong. It was much stronger than people had anticipated. Job growth is not only strong, but it's, It's U.S. citizens for the vast majority of the new jobs that are created.

Interest rates are down. All of that gasoline, as he pointed out, and a place in Iowa, it's under $2. It doesn't apply to here to us in California. We're going to be seen six, seven, and eight in this summer because we drove out two large refineries that will be living California. Nevertheless, he got what he needed to say at the very beginning. And then it wasn't really a state of the union address. more of a variety show or it was a personal, it was an interview when he brought all of these tragic cases of these people, and they all had one thing in common, whether it was the family

that was impacted by the illegal alien truck driver, or it was to show how so many people had been patriotic and foddered him by half, or the sudden entry of the hockey team, or the tragic killing of the Ukrainian immigrant on a train. It was all to show you two things that were a wonderful patriotic country and the policies of the Democratic opposition had caused in some cases these tragedies. And then the Democrats thought they were going to be very, very cute by boycotting. I don't know. They said 73 or 4, but maybe only 60 actually boycotted.

They wouldn't stand for any applause no matter what the topic was or no matter whether they agreed with it. And they were going to have alternate realities in reply to Donald Trump's speech. And they were all a disaster, to be quite frank. Governor Spanberger of Virginia, she's added all these taxes. She's taxing anything that moves or breeze. And she's talking about her affordability record. I think it was mostly about her. She thinks I think that Newsom, Harris, Buttigig, they're not viable candidates and somebody like herself.

A dark horse might emerge in 2008. I don't think she is. It wasn't a very inspiring speech. Alex Padilla, his reply was incoherent. It was basically that ICE has no business enforcing the law. I don't know Spanish all that well, but when I can understand. a lot of what he was saying, then he must not be speaking the Spanish that most people do, because I could understand a lot of it, and it seemed incoherent to me.

Then there was at the National Press Cup some weird alternate venue where people dressed up in costumes, and they were screaming and yelling and frogs and giraffes, and it just joy read. It didn't make any sense at all. And then the final thing is they didn't understand Donald Trump, the longest, speech in history would mean what, that they were going to come on Eastern time at 11 o'clock or even 1130 by the time they got going. So nobody really heard what they were doing. And when they did have a chance to see and hear them during the actual address, they wouldn't even stand up for the poor girl who was maimed and tragically disabled by the illegal alien truck driver. they wouldn't stand up for the Ukrainian mom who was there, who was lamenting the horrific murder of her child.

They wouldn't stand up for anything. Nancy Pelosi, when they talked about outlying insider stock trading, she looked like she was mummified. It was just, it wasn't a good look for any of them. And the polls kind of reflected that. More people thought it was a good, very good, or moderate. really good than bad. About six, two-thirds of the people liked it. Even some of Trump's favorability ratings, the Trafalgar poll had him coming up over 50%. So what shouldn't have worked at that link worked actually quite brilliantly. And there's something about the Democratic Party,

whether it's Al Green with a sign that he had and disrupting the speech or Ilium. Omar and Rashida Talib that are screaming KKK and liar. We used to think that when anybody disrupted a state of the union, it was terrible. And the last time we really saw a disruption was Al Green tried to break the cadence of Trump. Then, of course, we had Nancy Pelosi in the first term who tore up the state of the union address on national TV. Nobody would ever do that again. And so my point is that the Democrats really look like they are. It's not that they look bad.

It's just that when you look at their field, Gavin Newsom, AOC, Pete Buttigieg, there's no one there. There's no there or there. And so Trump really did pull off something that no one anticipated that he was going to speak for nearly two hours. And yet it was a lively variety show with points of triumphalism and happiness. and abject sadness. But to finish, the Democrats thought they were so smug, but they had no idea what was coming. When he asked everybody to stand if they thought that they would prioritize American citizens

over illegal aliens, they thought, I'm not going to give this person the benefit of ever agreeing with it. True, they didn't. But to the American people, the 50 or 60 million who watched, it wasn't about Trump. It was just to reiterate that the policies under Biden were something that they didn't approve of anymore because they were very unpopular. And what did they do? They sat down.

They wouldn't even rise. They couldn't even make that statement that their priorities are American citizens. And that just channels in to what we're going to see in 2006 in November, this next midterm. There were so many soundbites. There were so many great opportunities in that speech for ads, campaign ads, and you're going to see a lot of. them in November. Thank you very much. This is Victor Davis Hansen for The Daily Signal. Thank you for tuning in to the Daily Signal. Please like, share, and subscribe to be notified for more content like this. You can also check out my own website at victorhansen.com

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