• President Donald Trump gave his first speech to the American people since taking office Tuesday night, and it was long. The president’s address to Congress lasted more than 90 minutes breaking Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union record. Trump talked about everything from tariffs to immigration to trans kids to the economy. Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett joins us to debrief the president’s rambling speech.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, March 5th. I’m Jane Coasten, and this is What a Day. The show that did not expect President Donald Trump to become bizarro Oprah. Scholarships, secret service badges, wildlife refuges. It’s all happening. [music break] On today’s show, we’re talking about President Trump’s first speech to the American people. And the speech was, well, it was a speech, the longest joint session speech in history. And you felt every single minute of it with lots of capital letters. It was a speech in which Trump emphasized that, contrary to what you, me, Texas Democratic Representative Al Green or millions of people think everything is actually awesome. Super awesome. Except for Democrats who are mean. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realized there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy, or to make them stand or smile or applaud. Nothing I can do. 

Jane Coaston: It was a campaign speech, which is weird because the campaign is over. It’s been over, but not for Donald Trump, who felt the need to bring up former President Joe Biden, Stacey Abrams and the nation of Lesotho. He brought up Biden a whole lot, actually, in the context of the economy, which he described as being way, way worse than I seem to remember. And immigration. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president. [cheers]

Jane Coaston: Eew. But we did learn some fascinating, brand new, super fun things like that apparently, trans kids are one of our biggest threats. A thing I absolutely do not believe for a goddamn second. We learned who really runs the Department of Government Efficiency. And despite what you may have heard from attorneys at the Department of Justice, it’s you do you think?

[clip of President Donald Trump] DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. Perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk. Who is in the gallery tonight. 

Jane Coaston: Have fun in court explaining that guys. We learned that Democrats should support Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr because he has the last name Kennedy, and that we’re super serious about cleaning up the environment, which is why we’ve handed the Environmental Protection Agency over to chemical lobbyists while cutting hundreds of jobs from the department. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong. 

Jane Coaston: But remember, everything is awesome. So awesome. Mars trip level awesome. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond. 

Jane Coaston: To debrief Trump’s address. Joining me is Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett. Jon, welcome back to WAD. 

Jon Lovett: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So Lovett.

Jon Lovett: Yes. 

Jane Coaston: There were a lot of horrible things said tonight. So many lies. So much scapegoating. What, in your opinion, was the most egregious part of Trump’s remarks tonight? 

Jon Lovett: I think what is most egregious is what he views as being worth time in the speech tells you a lot about what he cares about, right? Like there’s more time spent on vilifying trans people than there was on–

Jane Coaston: –Medicaid. 

Jon Lovett: Medi, Medicaid wasn’t mentioned. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah yeah. 

Jon Lovett: The only person that mentioned Medicaid was Al Green. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: The congressman who protested. Um. But I would say, like, if you’re just going to pick out one kind of lie because it was so brazen and so long lasting, it was the extended Social Security section in which he goes through in detail of all these brackets of ages of people that are receiving Social Security when basically just he’s saying, oh, these 100 year olds and 200 year olds. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: And 150 year olds are receiving Social Security benefits. We got to send Pam Bondi out there to find these these criminals that are taking this money. But this has been debunked. There are just–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: This is not true. It’s not happening. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jon Lovett: That was pretty egregious. The effort to paint trans teens. If you look at the studies right, like there are so few people getting gender affirming care as teenagers, even fewer of them are getting any kind of gender affirming care. Like it’s a just fleetingly small group of people. I think it’s part of a constellation of issues that they use to kind of show that they are tribunes for the working people or for normal people, whatever that means to them. To a surprising degree, because out of all the vilification that we’ve seen, like Americans are largely supportive of trans people, but they think they have like an 80/20, 70/30 issue on athletes and on parents having a right to know. Right? 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jon Lovett: So that’s what the focus of the speech ends up being on. It’s just awful. And like there’s so many places where where we’re, you know, issues that are being raised are are traps. 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jon Lovett: But then sometimes, like, I don’t I don’t care, I just want to–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: –jump in the trap for a little bit. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: You know what I mean? 

Jane Coaston: No, and it’s also like, I don’t care how it polls, I’m not. 

Jon Lovett: Right. 

Jane Coaston: I don’t, I don’t care, but an issue that actually doesn’t pull that great, tariffs. 

Jon Lovett: Right. 

Jane Coaston: Trump said that people would feel the pain a bit on tariffs, which was a hilarious thing for Republicans and I’m starting to see that argument being made of like, oh, we have to suffer a little bit. I’m like, seems like a you problem. But he definitely didn’t linger on that topic, even though it’s the news of the day. 

Jon Lovett: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Considering it’s going to wreak havoc on American consumers. Do you think he glossed over it because it’s not flashy enough to talk about, or is he kind of nervous about how people feel about it? Because he loves tariffs. He thinks the word is beautiful. 

Jon Lovett: It’s interesting the the tilting at there may be some disturbance, but we’ll be okay. First of all, it’s incredibly an incredibly glib way to describe what could be like a recession, what could be like a sudden increase in the cost of the daily necessities of life that will make life much, much worse for a lot of people. Not billionaires, not Elon, not him, not the people that can afford to take the shot. But a lot of people can’t afford–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jon Lovett: –a sudden price shock. Also, I don’t like he’s constantly talking about how brief it’s going to be, and I like I genuinely don’t understand what is supposed to happen briefly. Like, it takes a long time to build a factory. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: It takes a long time to increase our ability to produce whatever it is you’re tariffing from these other countries, like you’re going to make a steel plant? You’re gonna make an oil refinery? Like, these are things that take a long time. So are these tariffs just going to sit there for years making life more expensive while we slowly build up capacity? 

Jane Coaston: The president also congratulated himself on his handling of Ukraine, saying that he received a supplicant letter from President Zelensky, basically saying Ukraine was ready to bend over backwards and sign the minerals deal. How do these developments put their bonkers meeting into perspective? 

Jon Lovett: I don’t know whether that meeting was a set up or not, whether it was Zelensky taking the bait or not. But in the morning, signing this kind of deal with Ukraine becoming more economically entwined in Ukraine in some way, whether or not there was a security guarantee was seen as the right thing to do. And then there’s a fit of pique and now all of a sudden, we’re cutting off aid. And now all of a sudden, Zelensky’s saying he wants some kind of a deal and wants to sign what he had already said he would sign. All these guys, these like America first guys that kind of rationalize and intellectualize what Trump does or like, we can’t have an emotional foreign policy. We can’t have a foreign policy based on namby pamby values and the international order. We got to be realists, we got to do what is best for America. We gotta always think about what is in our interest as a country. That is the only thing that matters. If you are a realist, if you are making decisions, basing it on hard nosed logic, no argument or tiff should change the long term security interest of the United States. Ukraine wasn’t a different kind of ally in the morning than it was in the afternoon. The interest of Europe and how they aligned with ours versus Russia versus China didn’t change because Zelensky called him JD instead of Mr. Vice President. And so like, what are we fucking doing here? 

Jane Coaston: We’ll get to more of our conversation with Jon Lovett in a moment. But if you like the show make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: Let’s get back to our conversation with Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett. So something that struck me like Trump at its core. If he has one, is an entertainer or wants to be an entertainer. And tonight seemed especially rife with like, glitzy bullshit. There was like salesmanship at handing out college acceptances and renaming a nature refuge. Clearly his favorite part of the speech. What did you make of that? Does he want to be weirdo Oprah? 

Jon Lovett: So yeah, he loves being Oprah on these part of the speech. So the part where that kid gets into West Point, and the part where he made that little boy and a Secret Service agent, I it worked on me. It’s bullshit. It’s exploitative. It worked on me. I thought it just did. But then he starts to turn it into how we’ve got RFK Jr. And he’s going to look into toxins and he’s going to look into autism in this sort of conspiratorial way. And then of course, like the moment is ruined by the fact that this kid is being exploited and being–

Jane Coaston: Right.

Jon Lovett: –[?] to this ridiculous agenda. Then you have this really kind of dark moment where basically naming this Federal Nature Reserve after the victim of a brutal murder, all to kind of gin up anti-immigrant fervor because it was a crime committed by an undocumented immigrant. And like, that was sort of that’s what a lot of the people in the room were there to represent. Right. You had a volleyball player who had a run in with a trans athlete in some way, had some–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: –sort of injury or I don’t totally know the story. And that’s why we’ve got to stop the–

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: –trans athletes. And we have victims of crime from undocumented immigrants and like kind of all the different kind of Trump villains. And the–

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Jon Lovett: And like, the Trump enemies, kind of that’s what the showmanship part of the speech was about. 

Jane Coaston: I think Democrats were stuck in, to me, an unwinnable position tonight. Some Democrats held up signs saying like Musk steals, save veterans, they were using their phones. Some didn’t go. Women lawmakers wore pink. A lot of people just left early. Does any of this matter? And was there any way for Democrats to win this night? Like should everyone have left Al Green [?] because here’s something I was thinking about and I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Like there is the base that’s like, we want people to fight back. We want toughness, we want something like that. And now I just keep thinking about swing voters or people who don’t pay any attention. 

Jon Lovett: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Who are like, why are they being so divisive? We want to see people working together. And I don’t know how you work those two things together. I don’t know if that’s possible. I don’t know how that works. I thank God I am not a political consultant. I would be a terrible one. But like, it seems like you are caught in a trap where if you do things that are like, yeah, the base is up, well, the base would be up anyway. The base is going to be there for the midterms, but you need the people who are who were somehow convinced Trump was going to give them free IVF. Or you need the people who were convinced that Trump because he said he wasn’t involved in project 2025. He wasn’t like, you need people who don’t care about politics but do see things on their phone. 

Jon Lovett: It’s why we just recorded Pod Save America and we are like, we’re talking about this ourselves and the way we kind of yoyo on this, right? Like, you know, we come out of Kamala’s loss. We’re like, it was too much about democracy. We need to focus on kitchen table issues. Then we see Donald Trump doing this and people are kind of like, but what about the price of eggs? It’s like, wait, you’re missing the moment. This is about authoritarianism. This is about democracy. And I think the way to me, you square that circle is we’re not like the midterms are a long ways away. Donald Trump, barring things getting much, much worse, is not going to be on the ballot again. And things could get much, much worse. So what is our goal right now? And I like it is true that in the run up to 2024, Kamala Harris did not have a lot of runway. And so she had to convince people based on where their heads were at right then. And at that moment, some share of voters were awake to the threat of authoritarianism. Some share of voters were into it. And then there were some share of the voters in the middle. Right. And I think the question for us is, okay, we have this group of people that understand the authoritarian menace. They want us to fight, but there’s this other big group of people that we also need to reach, as you said, that just don’t view this as anything other than normal politics and are concerned about kitchen table issues. And I think we have to think about doing two things at once, which is one, making sure we’re speaking to those real needs. Right. We need those people to view us as credible advocates, but also thinking like, hey, let’s change this, right? Like, what do we do now to wake up more people to this menace? Right. Like Donald Trump is rewarded for the fact that he can berate an ally. He can side with our adversaries. He can vote with Putin at the UN, he can dispatch Elon Musk and and illegally destroy federal agencies and like yeah, you may see some some noise in the polls, but like America is not suddenly awoken to the fascist menace. Right. Like we’re things still feel as they did. Like maybe the polls are ticking against him. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah. 

Jon Lovett: But there’s not some seismic shift. And I do think it’s worth using this time to think about not how do we deal with the reality of the current politics of exactly what we’re describing. But like, how do we change that? Right? How do we get more people to understand this as a menace? And what does that look like? Right. Like Al Green walking out like if more Democrats had done it, like by the way, poll snap poll came out, most people thought that was divisive, right? Most people watching didn’t like that. Is that okay? Maybe that’s a good thing, right? Like, what if what we have to do right now to to make people understand the threat is do things that people don’t like for a beat? Right, that maybe don’t poll well. That maybe don’t test well. And the problem is, when you do that, you kind of leave the data behind, right? And then you become what, just a like a it’s just about like our feelings and our instincts. But the other part of it is like, we’ve tried these poll tested messages. We’ve tried offering people a normal alternative. It did not work. So, like, I don’t feel like I like just to be clear, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s right, but I just think we need to be open. Like, we need to, like, widen the aperture a little bit about, like, what a good idea could be. 

Jane Coaston: Jon, as always, thank you for joining me. 

Jon Lovett: Thanks for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Pod Save America’s Jon Lovett. [music break]. 

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Vote for whomever makes future presidents send all this shit in an email and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how seriously presidents used to send their state of the Union or a joint address to Congress as a written report before Woodrow Wilson, one of the worst people to ever live, resumed the big in-person state of the Union in 1913, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and as always, Woodrow Wilson was the problem. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters, and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]

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