During that era America was flagrantly (and legally) racist and sexist and many people were denied access to the American dream. It was not a perfect place by any means. But I do think their experience fighting fascism gave them a much clearer sense of the stakes. It would be weird if it didn’t.
This message is more needed today than it was then.
I haven’t seen much discussion of Spanberger’s rebuttal last night but I thought it was quite good. Normally, I’m put off by these speeches because they just seem so weak but compared to the reality pageant Trump put on last night is t was refreshingly serious and persuasive. I think it’s worth thinking about how she framed our current political situation. She talked at length about the economic situation but that wasn’t all of it.
Greg Sargent writes on BlueSky:
Dems should pay close attention to what Spanberger developed here: A forceful anti-Trump politics that speaks to people like grownups about ICE, grasps the political/cultural significance of Minneapolis, and doesn’t shrink from defending immigrants and democracy:
Every candidate has to figure out how to appeal to their own constituents and there isn’t a one size fits all national message in a mid-term election. But this is a good framework to work with.
Good evening and welcome to historic Williamsburg.
We are gathered here in the chambers of the House of Burgesses. In 1705, the people of the Virginia colony gathered here to take on the extraordinary task of governing themselves.
Before there was a Declaration of Independence, a Constitution, or a Bill of Rights — there were people in this very room.
The people who served here ultimately dreamed of what a new nation — unlike anything the world had ever seen — could be.
The United States was founded on the idea that ordinary people could reject the unacceptable excesses of poor leadership, band together to demand better of their government, and create a nation that would be an example for the world.
And this year, as we celebrate 250 years since America declared our independence from tyranny, I can think of no better place to speak to you as we reflect on the current state of our union.
Tonight, as we watched our nation’s lawmakers gather for a joint session of Congress, we did not hear the truth from our President.
So, let’s speak plainly and honestly, and let me ask you three questions:
Is the President working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
Is the President working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad?
Is the President working for YOU?
As I campaigned for Governor last year, I traveled to every corner of Virginia, and I heard the same pressing concern everywhere: costs are too high. In housing, healthcare, energy, and childcare. And I know these same conversations are being had all across this country.
Because since this President took office last year, his reckless trade policies have forced American families to pay more than $1,700 each in tariff costs.
Small businesses have suffered. Farmers have suffered — some losing entire markets. Everyday Americans are paying the price.
And even though the Supreme Court struck these tariffs down four days ago, the damage to us, the American people, has already been done.
Meanwhile, the President is planning for new tariffs. Another massive tax hike on you and your family.
Republicans in Congress? They remain unwilling to assert their constitutional authority to stop him.
They’re making your life harder. They’re making your life more expensive. They’re even making it more difficult to see a doctor.
Rural health clinics in Virginia are already closing their doors thanks to the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” championed by the President and Republicans in Congress.
And tonight, the President celebrated this law — the one threatening rural hospitals, stripping healthcare from millions of Americans, and driving up costs in energy and housing. All while cutting food programs for hungry kids.
But here in Virginia, I am working with our state legislature to lower costs and make the Commonwealth more affordable.
And it’s not just me. Democrats across the country are laser-focused on affordability — in our nation’s capital and in state capitals and communities across America.
In the most innovative and exceptional nation in the history of the world, Americans deserve to know that their leaders are focused on addressing the problems that keep them up at night. Problems that dictate where you live, whether you can afford to start a business, or whether you have to skip a prescription in order to buy groceries.
So I’ll ask again: Is the President working to make life more affordable for you and your family?
We all know the answer is no.
I grew up in a house of service. My mother was a nurse and my father was a career law enforcement officer. I began my career by following in my father’s footsteps as a federal agent working money laundering and narcotics cases. I worked side by side with local and state police to keep our communities safe and to uphold and enforce the law.
Law enforcement officers across the country know that it’s a unique responsibility to do the serious work of investigating crimes, comforting victims, and making arrests. It’s about building trust, and that requires an abiding sense of duty and commitment to community.
And yet, our President has sent poorly trained federal agents into our cities, where they have arrested and detained American citizens and people who aspire to be Americans — and they have done it without a warrant.
They have ripped nursing mothers away from their babies, they have sent children — a little boy in a blue bunny hat — to far-off detention centers, and they have killed American citizens on our streets.
And they have done it all with their faces masked from accountability.
Every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not spent investigating murders, crimes against children, or the criminals defrauding seniors of their life savings.
Our President told us tonight that we are safer because these agents arrest mothers and detain children. Think about that.
Our broken immigration system is something to be fixed — not an excuse for unaccountable agents to terrorize our communities.
After working in law enforcement, I continued my career of service as a CIA officer, working undercover to protect the United States and our allies from global threats: terrorism, nuclear weapons, and the aggression of adversarial nations around the globe.
But as the President spoke of his perceived successes tonight, he continues to cede economic power and technological strength to China, bow down to a Russian dictator, and make plans for war with Iran.
Here’s the truth: over the last year, through DOGE, mass firings, and the appointment of deeply unserious people to our nation’s most serious positions, our President has endangered the long and storied history of the United States of America being a force for good.
So, I’ll ask again: Is the President working to keep Americans safe — both at home and abroad?
We all know the answer is no.
In his speech tonight, the President did what he always does: he lied, he scapegoated, and he distracted. He also offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges — so many of which he is actively making worse.
He tries to enrage us, to divide us, to pit us against one another. Neighbor against neighbor. And sometimes, he succeeds.
And so you have to ask: Who benefits from his rhetoric, his policies, his actions, and the short list of laws he’s pushed through this Republican Congress?
Somebody must be benefitting.
He’s enriching himself, his family, his friends. The scale of the corruption is unprecedented.
There’s the cover-up of the Epstein files.
The crypto scams.
Cozying up to foreign princes for airplanes and billionaires for ballrooms.
Putting his name and face on buildings all over our nation’s capital.
This is not what our founders envisioned.
So, I’ll ask again: Is the President working for you?
We all know the answer is no.
But here is the special thing about America: on our 250th anniversary, we know better than any nation what is possible when ordinary citizens — like those who once dreamed right here in this room — reject the unacceptable and demand more of their government.
We see it in the determination of students organizing school walk outs all across the country, whose voices are becoming so powerful that the Governor of Texas seeks to silence them.
We see it in the bravery of Americans in Minnesota standing up for their communities — from peacefully protesting in subzero temperatures to carpooling children to school so that their immigrant parents are not ripped away from them in the parking lot.
As a mother of three school-aged daughters, I am inspired by their bravery, but I am sickened that it is necessary.
And Americans across the country are taking action. They are going to the ballot box to reject this chaos.
With their votes, they are writing a new story. A more hopeful story.
In November, I won my election by 15 points, and we won 13 new seats in our state legislature. Because voters decided they wanted something different.
Our campaign earned votes from Democrats, Republicans, Independents, and everyone in-between; because they knew as citizens, they could demand more.
That they could vote for what they believe matters, and they didn’t need to be constrained by a party or political affiliation
This is happening across the country. New Jersey elected Mikie Sherrill as Governor in a double-digit victory.
Democrats flipped state legislative seats in places like Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi, and Texas. The list goes on and on.
Ordinary Americans are stepping up to run — in the spirit of our forefathers — they are running to demand more and do more for their neighbors and communities.
I know this story well.
I first ran for office in 2018 alongside dozens of other Democrats who did the seemingly impossible, flipping 41 seats in Congress. In my case, I was the first Democrat elected in 50 years, swinging our district 17 points.
Those who are stepping up now to run will win in November because Americans know you can demand more, and that we are working to lower costs, we are working to keep our communities and country safe, and we are working for you!
In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned us about the possibility of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” rising to power.
But he also encouraged us — all Americans — to unite in “a common cause” to move this nation forward.
That is our charge once more. And that is what we are seeing across the country.
It is deeply American and patriotic to do so, and it is how we ensure that the State of our Union remains strong, not just this year but for the next 250 years as well.
Because “We the people” have the power to make change, the power to stand up for what is right, and the power to demand more of our nation.
May God bless the Commonwealth of Virginia, and may God bless the United States of America.
This is very good:
In his Farewell Address, George Washington warned us about the possibility of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men” rising to power.
But he also encouraged us — all Americans — to unite in “a common cause” to move this nation forward.
That is our charge once more. And that is what we are seeing across the country.
It is deeply American and patriotic to do so, and it is how we ensure that the State of our Union remains strong, not just this year but for the next 250 years as well.
Here’s some nightmare fuel for you:
Advanced AI models appear willing to deploy nuclear weapons without the same reservations humans have when put into simulated geopolitical crises.
Kenneth Payne at King’s College London set three leading large language models – GPT-5.2, Claude Sonnet 4 and Gemini 3 Flash – against each other in simulated war games. The scenarios involved intense international standoffs, including border disputes, competition for scarce resources and existential threats to regime survival.
The AIs were given an escalation ladder, allowing them to choose actions ranging from diplomatic protests and complete surrender to full strategic nuclear war. The AI models played 21 games, taking 329 turns in total, and produced around 780,000 words describing the reasoning behind their decisions.
In 95 per cent of the simulated games, at least one tactical nuclear weapon was deployed by the AI models. “The nuclear taboo doesn’t seem to be as powerful for machines [as] for humans,” says Payne.
What’s more, no model ever chose to fully accommodate an opponent or surrender, regardless of how badly they were losing. At best, the models opted to temporarily reduce their level of violence. They also made mistakes in the fog of war: accidents happened in 86 per cent of the conflicts, with an action escalating higher than the AI intended to, based on its reasoning.
“From a nuclear-risk perspective, the findings are unsettling,” says James Johnson at the University of Aberdeen, UK. He worries that, in contrast to the measured response by most humans to such a high-stakes decision, AI bots can amp up each others’ responses with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Well, it’s just theoretical, right? They’re never going to let AI do any real decision making. That would be crazy.
Well, we don’t know:
This matters because AI is already being tested in war gaming by countries across the world. “Major powers are already using AI in war gaming, but it remains uncertain to what extent they are incorporating AI decision support into actual military decision-making processes,” says Tong Zhao at Princeton University.
hao believes that, as standard, countries will be reticent to incorporate AI into their decision making regarding nuclear weapons. That is something Payne agrees with. “I don’t think anybody realistically is turning over the keys to the nuclear silos to machines and leaving the decision to them,” he says.
But there are ways it could happen. “Under scenarios involving extremely compressed timelines, military planners may face stronger incentives to rely on AI,” says Zhao.
He wonders whether the idea that the AI models lack the human fear of pressing a big red button is the only factor in why they are so trigger happy. “It is possible the issue goes beyond the absence of emotion,” he says. “More fundamentally, AI models may not understand ‘stakes’ as humans perceive them.”
I’m not reflexively anti-AI, I understand that it likely has many useful purposes. But what happens if you combine AI with Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth? Neither one of them have normal human emotions or understand the stakes in anything.
Do you think that’s a stretch? Get a load of this:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is threatening to blacklist Anthropic from working with the U.S. military over the artificial intelligence company’s refusal to loosen its safety standards. The threat came on Tuesday during a meeting between Hegseth and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, according to two people with direct knowledge of the meeting who were not authorized to speak publicly.
While both sides agreed Hegseth vowed to punish Anthropic for not bending to the administration’s demands, accounts of what exactly the threat was vary. One person close to the discussion said Hegseth dangled the possibility of canceling Anthropic’s $200 million contract with the Defense Department, while a Pentagon official said repercussions could include forcing Anthropic to allow the federal government to use its AI tools against its will and blacklisting the company from receiving future work with the U.S. military.
For months, Amodei has insisted that using AI for domestic mass surveillance and AI-controlled weapons are ethical lines the company will not cross, calling such use “illegitimate” and “prone to abuse.” According to a source familiar with the Hegseth meeting, Amodeo stressed those positions again on Tuesday.
Hegseth believes that following the law is “woke.” No surprise there. After all, this is a person who believes that laws against war crimes are woke. There is every reason to believe that he believes the prohibition against using nuclear weapons is as well.
This new initiative is not what they say it is:
The Trump administration is discussing an executive order designed to force banks to collect citizenship data alongside other identification information from customers, according to multiple media reports.
The potential move would represent a significant new push in President Donald Trump’s effort to discourage undocumented migration to the US, and could impose substantial and unprecedented new mandates on financial institutions.
If you’ve been listening to Stephen Miller you know that he’s looking at all immigrants not just the undocumented. This would subject any non-citizen banking customer to special scrutiny and there are plenty of people who would rather not do that. After all, who knows what Trump will do next? Start seizing assets of foreigners? Don’t kid yourself. It could happen.
Foreigners should be very wary of using American banks if they do this. And that is a disaster for banks. I’ll be shocked if the banker boyz let this happen.
David Chalian adds:
“This is a poll of speech watchers. So it is not a poll that is reflective of the population overall… What we know about people who tune into SOTU addresses is that they tend to be fans of whichever president is giving the speech. The polling universe here is about 13 points more Republican than the overall population.”
Even his own people were unimpressed.
Susan Glasser in the New Yorker:
But, if Tuesday’s speech proved anything, it’s that it’s hard to explain how you are going to get America out of a mess that you do not believe exists. A year ago, a mere six weeks into his second term, Trump opened his address to Congress by claiming that he had done more in that time than any President ever did, George Washington included; this time, he boasted that “our nation is back, bigger, better, richer, and stronger than ever before.” He said that prices were down and that “affordability” was “a word—they just used it.” All those complaints about the high cost of living in Trump’s America were just “a dirty, rotten lie.” Prices are not really too high, he said. But, even if they were, everything was fine, because “soon you will see numbers that few people would think it possible to achieve just a short time ago.” That’s some case, Madam Press Secretary.
The problem for Trump at such a moment is that he’s not a persuader; he’s a pitchman, the kind of salesman who transmits in exclamation points all the fantastic, terrific, unbelievable features of the new car that he wants you to buy. “A short time ago, we were a dead country; now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world!” Trump said on Tuesday night. But the salesman is not who you want to talk to when you have the broken-down old jalopy towed back to the lot and demand a refund.
[…]
Trump’s default setting is triumphalism. He is never more animated than when he’s touting his own accomplishments, even if they are not actually his accomplishments. His eyes positively glowed as he launched into a long riff with an imagined interlocutor about how “our country is winning so much” under his leadership “that we really don’t know what to do about it.” A few seconds later, the doors to the visitor’s gallery above the House floor opened and the American men’s Olympic hockey team, wearing matching U.S.A. sweaters and gold medals, marched in. Chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” rang through the hall.
It was both the most theatrical moment in Trump’s speech and the most revealing. Did he think that he personally was responsible for winning that gold? Probably.
If only he had ended his speech there. The rest of the address turned out to be a reprise of Trump’s “American carnage” greatest hits: a bloody mess of murderous illegal aliens (“And we’re getting them the hell out of here fast”), “Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota,” and all the “stolen and rigged” bad things that Democrats had done to the country. This was Trump in dark mode, his only other setting for one of these speeches, which made a certain amount of sense. Who else but Trump’s most fervent supporters were still listening by this point, long into his speech? The President seemed almost relieved that there were enough Democrats who had not walked out of the room in disgust for him to taunt. “These people are crazy,” he said. “I’m telling you, they’re crazy.”
This, from Tom Nichols is good too:
President Ronald Reagan, the “Great Communicator,” once managed to do the entire State of the Union address in 31 minutes; that’s because he could say important things efficiently and well. Tonight, however, was not about communication—it was about showmanship. Almost every line was a cue for applause from obedient Republicans; they even gave Jared Kushner a standing ovation. Every few minutes, Trump told a story and reached out into the audience like the host of The Price Is Right, telling people to come on down.
He started, of course, with the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team. Just basking along with Team USA wasn’t enough. Trump soon announced that the goalie Connor Hellebuyck would receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Normally, this honor is bestowed for a lifetime of achievement, but this time it was given as if the young athlete had chosen the right door and found a new car.
And so it went, all night. Sometimes, the guests were meant to tug at the heartstrings, such as when Trump recognized Erika Kirk, the wife of the murdered activist Charlie Kirk. Others were presented as ornaments meant to illustrate Trump’s successes: Enrique Márquez, a Venezuelan political prisoner freed after U.S. forces deposed the strongman Nicolás Maduro, was given a round of well-deserved applause. Trump also gave a shout-out to a woman whose IVF medications were now, he claimed, cheaper because of him.
But no group received more attention than the U.S. military. Trump handed out two Purple Hearts (one posthumously), a Legion of Merit, and not one but two Congressional Medals of Honor. Military awards that should have been treated with dignity and respect were placed on men like prizes, including a moment when Trump’s co-host, the first lady, put one of the Medals of Honor around the neck of a 100-year-old fighter pilot.
It was a show. A very bad, boring one that demeaned everyone associated with it.
The”guest” that was the most dubious was the girl who alleged that a school tried to change her gender against her parents wishes. Someone should look into that one.
The Bulwark team’s approach to SOTU analysis sounds like the name of an early 1960s game show even I barely remember (and Donald Trump was never clever enough to play). They urge Americans studying Donald Trump’s speech from Tuesday night to pay close attention to what the con man didn’t say.
Bill Kristol didn’t watch the speech either. He doesn’t venture an analysis, but he skimmed a transcript of its one hour and 48 minutes. Here’s what he didn’t see mentioned: equality, rights, the rule of law, the Constitution, republic, democracy, immigrants (although he mentioned immigration), opportunity, and justice.
And of course, while he relished telling lurid, bloody tales of immigrant violence, Trump never mentioned Renee Good or Alex Pretti, both shot and killed by his civil-rights-blind immigrant-hunters in Minneapolis.
“Our president has no interest in elevating what is distinctive and admirable about America,” Kristol writes. “Nor does he have any interest in addressing instances of gross injustice in America. For now, those are our tasks, and our duty. It is, after all, our Union, not Donald Trump’s.”
Amen to that. Get after it.
The longest ever State of the Union speech. That’s the consensus. Donald John Trump likely won’t be Trumpeting his show’s ratings, at least not honestly. (I avoided the plague; Digby watched but couldn’t muster an analysis of the “drivel.”) He apparently stuck to his script. Like this:
And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.
The convicted felon wants to take the country back over 100 years to the pre-New Deal days of the robber barons and the Ludlow Massacre. The people he loves are not people like you.
A collection of comments on Trump’s appearance Tuesday night.
Tom Nichols (The Atlantic): Trump “said little of substance, but substance wasn’t the point. This year, he intended to put on a show, with an array of guest stars and special appearances. He was happy because he was playing the roles he clearly loves: game-show host, ringmaster, emcee, beneficent granter of wishes—and, where the Democrats were concerned, a self-righteous inquisitor…. pity the fact-checkers”
Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez (The Ink): “It was a fascist rally peppered with flop-sweat one-liners, ring-led by a man who often sounded bored by his own teleprompted script…. For so much of Tuesday’s speech, Trump hectored the nation to just be grateful for a ruined economy that basically nobody believes is working for them anymore.”
Joyce Vance (Civil Discourse): “Trump continues to live in a magic fantasyland where stuff becomes true just because he says it is.”
National Review: “The problem is that talking people out of how they’re feeling about the economy tends to be very difficult for an elected official, and the inflation rate is, while down significantly, still too high…. [I]t often had the feel of a Trump rally inside the congressional chamber, with its over-the-top boastfulness, informal asides, dubious claims, pointed partisan jabs, and sheer length.”
Paul Krugman: “Well, that was exhausting — or would have been, if I had watched it.” [He waited for the transcript.] “[T]here are two big disconnects. First is the gap between what Trump promised — he was going to bring grocery prices down, cut energy prices in half — and what he has actually delivered. Second is the gap between his wild boasts about how great things are and the reality of a K-shaped economy that is leaving many Americans behind.”
Ed Kilgore (New York magazine): “For a while, you felt that the veteran TV star at the podium was channeling Oprah, showering awards on the worthiest people in his studio audience.”
Dan Pfeiffer (Message Box): “[F]rom a purely political perspective, Trump’s State of the Union was an epic disaster — political malpractice of the highest order.”
Navigator Research: “The dials dipped…when Trump touted the ‘golden age of America’ and his non-stop ‘winning,’ indicating a disconnect between the president and Americans on the economic state of our union.” Focus group member: “Why did he talk about nothing? What kind of speech was that? He said nothing.”
Oh, but the introduction modified by Jimmy Kimmel’s team was magnificent.
View on Threads
In between lurid, bloody tales of murder and mayhem that went on longer than your average Dateline episode, the following is how much time he spent talking about policy:
Affordability is the number one issue in the country.
I’m spent too. We had to endure too many of these and I just don’t have it in me to do “analysis” of his drivel.
I’ll just let Sen. Warnock have the last word:
Tonight he’s going the brag and whine, the only way he ever communicates. But it’s what’s taking him down. He can’t shut his pie hole about things the people do not like.
There has been a ton of polling out this week but I thought this one from Echelon was particularly interesting:
Every issue in double digits works against Trump.
I think that monument stuff is truly brutal. Aside from demanding the Nobel Peace Prize and tariffs, it’s the most important priority of his presidency. And even many of his own people obviously dislike it.
I wrote about this story broken by Roger Sollenberger briefly yesterday but the story has now been confirmed by NPR and MS NOW and it’s big:
The Justice Department has withheld some Epstein files related to allegations that President Trump sexually abused a minor, an NPR investigation finds. It also removed some documents from the public database where accusations against Jeffrey Epstein also mention Trump.
Some files have not been made public despite a law mandating their release. These include what appear to be more than 50 pages of FBI interviews, as well as notes from conversations with a woman who accused Trump of sexual abuse decades ago when she was a minor.
NPR reviewed multiple sets of unique serial numbers appearing before and after the pages in question, stamped onto documents in the Epstein files database, FBI case records, emails and discovery document logs in the latest tranche of documents published at the end of January. NPR’s investigation found dozens of pages that appear to be catalogued by the Justice Department but not shared publicly.
The Justice Department declined to answer NPR’s questions on the record about these specific files, what’s in them and why they are not published. After publication, the Justice Department reached out to NPR, taking issue with how its responses to questions were framed. Department of Justice spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre reiterated DOJ’s stance that any documents not published are privileged, are duplicates or relate to an ongoing federal investigation.
[…]
Other files scrubbed from public view pertain to a separate woman who was a key witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial of Epstein’s co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking. Maxwell is seeking clemency from Trump.
Some of those documents were briefly taken down and put back online last week, while others remain hidden, according to NPR’s comparison of the initial dataset from Jan. 30 with document metadata of those files currently on the Justice Department website.
What is the allegation?
The woman who testified in the Maxwell trial testified that Epstein took her to meet Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was 14 years old. There’s more to that but we don’t know what it is.
This article from 2016 outlines a bunch of other allegations of Trump doing exactly the same kind of behavior with minor girls. What seemed kind of outlandish 10 years ago doesn’t seem so today, does it?
I will just remind everyone of this excerpt from a 1993 book recounting Ivana Trump’s deposition testimony in their divorce case:
