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Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, February 25th, I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that is blaming President Woodrow Wilson for why we all spend two hours watching President Donald Trump award so many medals. From 1800 to 1913, the State of the Union was a letter to Congress. Woodrow, a terrible person who also re-segregated the federal workforce, reinstated the in-person speech thinking, what if everyone just watched me talk instead? God, I hate Woodrow Wilson. [music break] On today’s show, we’re up late bringing you the highlights, and lowlights, from the State of the Union. Trump’s speech had everything. If by everything you mean easily fact-checkable lies. Like this line, for example. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] It was July 4th of last year when floodwaters tore through a girl’s summer camp in central Texas. One of the worst things I’ve ever seen. I was there. 

Jane Coaston: He was not there. On July 4th, 2025, he was signing his big Republican spending law debacle disaster adventure on the South Lawn of the White House. But don’t worry, we got fear-mongering and racism about Somali immigrants too. He also told horrifying and tragic stories in front of the families of the people who were forced to endure them to get the audience on board with anti-immigrant diatribes. In a moment that Trump was clearly waiting for, he demanded members of Congress stand for not protecting quote, “illegal aliens.” 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Tonight, I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. [cheers]

Jane Coaston: And then yelled at Democrats who didn’t stand. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Isn’t that a shame? You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up. You should be ashamed of your self. That is why I’m also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens. In many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country, they’re blocking the removal of these people out of our country. And you should be ashamed of yourself.

Jane Coaston: What you hear is Minnesota Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar going back and forth with Trump, yelling, quote, “You killed Americans.” Trump also offered up a frequently used claim of his, Democrats can only win elections if they cheat, which bodes not well for the midterms. We got a lot of awards from members of the armed services, including Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the family of Sarah Beckstrom, the two National Guard members shot in Washington, D.C. in November. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Now I’m going to ask a highly respected general, James Seward, to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom with the award created by our late, great president, George Washington himself. It’s called the purple heart.

Jane Coaston: And Trump brought up Iran, where the U.S. has been amassing military assets for the last few weeks. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We are in negotiations with them. They want to make a deal, but we haven’t heard those secret words, we will never have a nuclear weapon. 

Jane Coaston: But its overall message was the same we get every single day on Truth Social in-between rants about cable television hosts and misused punctuation. We are the hottest country in the world and everything is awesome and great. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Our country is winning again. In fact, we’re winning so much that we really don’t know what to do about it. People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we are winning too much. We can’t take it anymore. We’re not used to winning in our country, until you came along, we were just always losing, but now we’re winning too much. And I say, no, no no, you’re going to win again. You’re going to win big. You’re gonna win bigger than ever. And to prove that point, to prove that point here with us tonight is a group of winners who just made the entire nation proud. The men’s gold medal Olympic hockey team. Come on in. 

Jane Coaston: The gold-medal-winning U.S. women’s hockey team declined to attend the address, citing scheduling issues, which same. So to talk more about the longest State of the Union speech in history, I spoke with my colleagues, Crooked News Editor, Greg Walters, and What a Day newsletter writer, Matt Berg. Greg, Matt, welcome back to What a Day. 

Greg Walters: Thanks for having us. 

Matt Berg: Thanks for having us. 

Jane Coaston: Greg, you are currently speaking with us from the Capitol, what’s the vibe? 

Greg Walters: Yeah, uh, the vibe is weird. It’s pretty weird I mean I was watching the state of the union from the basement of the house side We had a bunch of members on the democratic side who just decided to simply skip this one but I would also say there’s a certain amount of almost optimism here because I think a lot of democrats are interpreting this speech as the last time Trump is going to address the combined houses with the republican majorities. The democrats are pretty confident dare I say it about taking the house back in the midterms and maybe even the senate. So you had a strange kind of like we’re gonna get through this even if it’s gonna take all night/ Which it kind of did. 

Jane Coaston: And we’re gonna talk about all of the elected officials you spoke with today ahead of the speech. But Matt, let’s go to you. You went to one of the alternative programming events that Democrats attended, the State of the Swamp hosted by Defiance.org. What was it like there tonight? 

Matt Berg: It felt like a giant therapy session, not only for Democrats, but also for a lot of Republicans who do not like Trump. There were probably about three or 400 people there. It was different than any event I’ve been to. Like you said, it was hosted by an organization created by Miles Taylor, the former Trump official who penned the anonymous op-ed in the New York Times in 2018. I mean, let me paint you a picture. You walk into the main room at the National Press Building and there’s giant inflatable frogs everywhere, which is a symbol of resistance to ICE in Portland. These people flew from Portland to come to the event and basically be the hype men for speakers at the event. You can look to your left and there’s a Democrat lawmaker. You look to your right, there’s a former Trump official. During the State of the Union itself, people did not pay any attention to Trump. Guests spoke back to back from Don Lemon to former White Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham. The crowd and the attendees I spoke with did not only focus on Trump, they also wanted to be focused on what to do next, which was how to organize our resistance, even when Democrats are not in power and how to make the democratic party stronger going forward. 

Jane Coaston: I want to get to talking about the speech itself because, Greg, you were watching it. And and there were just a lot of shout outs and prizes given. It was very like Oprah’s favorite things meets campaign rally. And it was interesting because you could tell that he knew that this is going to be a long event. He was trying to get people involved/get people to react and yell back at him so he could make everybody mad. But it was interested in how much he was trying in the beginning of the speech, which would be the part that most people would be able to watch on Eastern Standard Time. He was very focused on just like, let’s just talk about sports. Like the US men’s hockey team goalie is getting the presidential medal of freedom, which like, sure, but what was your take on that? 

Greg Walters: Well, Jane, this is what you do when the rest of what you’re doing is very unpopular. You bring in people who are more popular than you. And at the moment, that is the men’s Olympic hockey team. So I think it makes perfect sense if you’re unpopular on the economy and you’re unpopular in your immigration policies, two policies that were once Trump’s key strengths in electoral politics. He’s been fading a lot on those. And so I think there was a bit of a sense of uh well, if you don’t like me, maybe you’ll like the Olympic hockey goalie. 

Jane Coaston: It was interesting that there was a fair amount of mention of affordability, even though Trump seems to believe that he invented that idea or that Democrats just like were given that that word. And he talked a lot about tariffs, though he didn’t yell personally at members of the Supreme Court, the four who were present. But um one of the things he brought up was his support for an end to congressional stock trading. Can you talk a little bit more about what he said on that subject? 

Greg Walters: Yeah, Trump uh came out in favor of banning stock trading among members of Congress. And this is a popular policy. Nobody likes to see members of congress getting rich off inside information by trading a whole bunch of stocks. But I think it’s important to note what he left out of those comments. Trump has made a lot of money by monetizing the presidency. He has made a lot of money in crypto. He has made a lot of money in other random schemes. We may not even know all the money that he’s made. But he’s trying to ban members of Congress trading stocks. He’s not banning himself trading crypto. It’s like a trade ban for thee but not for me, which seems to be how Trump wants to play this thing. 

Jane Coaston: And yeah, Greg, it was interesting because the reason why this legislation hasn’t gone anywhere is because Democrats want that legislation to apply to the White House. And the White House says, oh, no, no. no, no. No no no no no. That’s that’s a you problem, not an us problem. And he definitely acted like affordability was his idea. And he talked a lot about the price of groceries. Do you think that that did anything or made an impact on anyone? Because I feel as if you can say anything you want about the price of groceries, but people are still going to go out and buy groceries. 

Greg Walters: Right. Trump’s message on this seems to be, who are you going to believe? Donald Trump or your lying eyes? And I think it remains to be seen whether that’s going to have any impact on average Americans who watch this speech and whether they’re going to go into the grocery store and decide that those numbers under the fruits and vegetables are lying to them or whether, you know, their cousin can’t get a job or is having trouble in various markets or if their concerns about AI are all just figments of their own imagination. I think Trump has this special ability to try to bend reality for people, and it remains to be seen whether this speech is going to be able to do that. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, was affordability discussed at State of the Swamp? 

Matt Berg: The conversations that I had were really like not focused on affordability, some people were saying it on stage, but it’s not something that was like touched on as much as you’d think at this event. 

Jane Coaston: So what were people talking about at this event? What were people focused on? 

Matt Berg: The biggest topic I’d say at the event, which is a lot different than anything else I’ve seen at other events was how to reclaim like pride in America. So Jacob Frey, who was tapped to give the rebuttal, he’s the Minneapolis mayor. He has been one of the few successful instances of pushback on the Trump administration when ICE came. He called on Americans to quote, “capture the American flag” in an interview with me before his rebuttal. That was also a theme that Robert De Niro hit on when he gave a speech at the end of the event. The crowd went wild when he listed all the ways he does not love America right now thanks to the Trump administration, but also how he felt it is our duty as Americans to push back and fight for the country we want. And so that was a really poignant theme that I don’t think I’ve heard discussed at these events as much. 

Jane Coaston: We’ll get to more State of the Union analysis with my colleagues on the What a Day newsletter team, Greg Walters and Matt Berg in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Spotify and Apple podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Welcome back, my colleagues Greg Walters and Matt Berg are still with us. Back at the State of the Union, Greg. There was a lot of military conversation, not just a lot awards given to military members, Purple Hearts, Congressional Medals of Honor, but there was some discussion, there was like a brief mention of Ukraine, a lot discussion of Trump ending wars that either weren’t wars or that aren’t over, but also some mention of Iran. How did those discussions of foreign policy go over? 

Greg Walters: I think it’s important to remember that Trump saved that part of the conversation for later in the evening. And this was such a long speech, who knows how many people even made it to that part. Trump wanted to focus on the economy. He wanted to focus on sports. He wanted to focus on uh trying to kind of give people a sense of uplift in his presidency, I think, until he got around to talking about some of these foreign policy issues. There are a lot of American ships and a lot of planes massing around Iran right now. And it’s it’s a little bit of a scary moment, I think, where people are bracing for an American attack on Iran if talks on the nuclear program don’t work out anytime soon. And Trump basically gave uh something of an ultimatum. He said that he wants to see talks succeed, but he doesn’t want to see Iran have a nuclear program. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, was war discussed at all at State of the Swamp? 

Matt Berg: War was definitely a topic that was hit a lot, but it was along the same theme of attendees hitting over and over the different things that Trump promised he would not do that he ended up doing. I mean, one way to look at that is that today um is the four-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. And he famously said that he would end that on day one. And it is, I believe, 400 days after that, and the war is still going. The night just hit on so many failed promises and one of those was to not get involved in all these messy foreign conflicts and that is exactly what Trump has done. 

Jane Coaston: You both talked to Democrats, ones who attended the State of the Union and ones who were at State of The Swamp. Greg, can you give me some of your takeaways from your conversations? 

Greg Walters: A lot of Democrats tonight were talking about affordability, and they were talking about affordability because they believe this is the message that they’re going to be able to use to take back the House and maybe even put the Senate in play. Optimism on the Senate varies, but I think there’s a lot of sense that they are going to hopefully be able take back the House. I talked to Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and he’s predicting a landslide victory for Democrats. After which, he said, Democrats are going to send out so many subpoenas to investigate the Trump family fortune, what he called the Trump Family Corruption, that he said Democrats are going have to buy a paper mill to produce all these subpoenas to send them out. Uh. You know, so you’re talking about um, you know, I was speaking to Senator Amy Klobuchar, who got mixed up and accidentally referred to uh to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker Jeffries. And he’s not Speaker Jeffries yet and he won’t be until and unless Democrats retake the majority. But I think many of them were thinking of this as basically Trump’s attempt to blunt their momentum on the midterms and they don’t think he did it. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, did any of that strike you any overlap or were they talking about something else at your event? 

Matt Berg: There was overlap with that, but as I hinted at before, the event had a lot of former Republicans as well as Democrats, and I think that that moderated the discussion a little bit to focus also on how Democrats can just improve in the future. So I was talking with Seth Moulton, the representative from Massachusetts about this topic and one thing that’s been in the news lately is how the DNC is not releasing it’s 2024, quote unquote, “autopsy,” into what went wrong in the presidential election. And Seth Moulton told me that he thinks that the report should be released and he has no idea why they will not release it. And that is one way the Democrats can move forward and move past what happened. And that was a huge conversation tonight that I’m not sure was had in more overly democratic spaces. 

Greg Walters: Can I just add something to this? I think that Democrats were looking at this speech and thinking, this is a long, long, long speech from a very unpopular president. And you’ve got to question the wisdom of giving such an unpopular President so much time. You know, it’s a little bit like a restaurant that is serving food people don’t like and deciding the way they’re going to fix this problem is by doubling the portions. I think a lot of Democrats are just thinking this is not the messenger or the message that is going to help Republicans retake the midterms. And they’re not feeling particularly worried, I think, about the way this went down. 

Jane Coaston: Matt, Greg, thank you for enduring and thank you for joining me. 

Greg Walters: Thank you!

Matt Berg: Thanks for having us. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Crooked News Editor Greg Walters and What a Day Newsletter Writer Matt Berg. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate how Trump is absolutely going to give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how: 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I’ve always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I’m not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn’t know why I’d be taking it. But if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday. 

Jane Coaston: Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston, and seriously, he is definitely going to give himself the Congressional Medal of Honor. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters and Matt Berg. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison. And our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdock and Jordan Cantor. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. [music break]