At the risk of showing my age, I confess that, as a political talking head, I've watched and commented on every State of the Union address since 1980. Donald Trump's sick imitation of a State of the Union was, by far, the worst.

For any president, a State of the Union is a unique opportunity to make his case to the Congress and the country in a prime-time speech that networks are forced to cover.

For Donald Trump the timing of this year's SOTU was especially important because it came at a time when, after a hard-charging first year, his administration was losing its focus, his tariffs had been shot down by the Supreme Court, his aggressive anti-immigration raids had been blocked by lower courts, his polls were hitting rock bottom, and many Republicans were openly complaining that he was hurting, not helping, their prospects in the midterms.

This was his chance to reset the agenda, rally the troops and unite the country moving forward. Instead, Trump did just the opposite. He didn't seize the moment, he blew it - with a boring, blowhard, aimless, hate-filled display of self-puffery that resembled the cheesy TV "Gong Show," where you never knew what surprise guest might pop out from behind the curtains next, be handed a prize and summarily dismissed.

Donald Trump's State of the Union was an insult to the American people and a disgrace on the office of president.

For starters, it was too long. Studies show that the average adult audience attention span is 8 to 10 minutes. Donald Trump clocked out at 1 hour and 47 minutes, the longest State of the Union ever. He's channeling Fidel Castro. Nobody wants to sit through a speech that long, certainly not from a politician, and especially not from a politician who's a proven, pathological liar.

As is true of any Trump speech, this one was packed, from beginning to end, with what CNN described as a "cascade of falsehoods." He bragged about ending eight wars. In fact, he hasn't ended one - certainly not the war in Ukraine, which he promised to end on "Day One." He repeated, with no evidence, his claim of "massive fraud" in the 2020 election, which has been investigated and proven false many times. Out of 49.5 million voter registrations checked by Trump's own Department of Homeland Security, only 10,000 cases - roughly 0.02%- were referred for additional investigation.

Every time his lips moved, another lie. He claimed to have attracted $18 trillion in new investments. But the White House website cites only $9.7 trillion, most of which are "promised" investments that may never be delivered. He bragged about "more people working today than ever before in the history of our country." Which is true, but only because there are more Americans today than ever before. President Joe Biden could make the same claim for every year he was president.

It was on the economy, where polls show Trump's in most trouble, that he told the most lies. He simply dismissed the question of "affordability." It's no problem anymore, he insisted, because he's fixed it with lower prices for everything from eggs to prescription drugs. False! Try telling that to people trying to buy their first home or simply trying to feed their family. Overall, according to Trump's own Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices for all groceries are 2.9% higher than in February 2025, and they're still going up.

Trump even asserted that the partial government shutdown prevented cities from responding to last week's blizzard, when the Department of Homeland Security has nothing to do with plowing streets.

And, of course, he wallowed in his old signature issue, stirring up fears of "illegal aliens" and bragging about mass deportation of murderers, rapists, drug dealers and violent criminals. False! A New York Times report found that only 7% of immigrants arrested last year had any record of violence. Thirty-seven percent were guilty of nothing more than a traffic violation. Trump's the same outright racist he was when he came down the golden elevator in June 2015.

Here's the best take on this year's State of the Union. As some enterprising reporter at CQ Roll Call figured out, it was almost exactly the same length as Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror film "Psycho." The same length and, in a sense, the same movie: the freaky story of confronting an out-of-control nut case.

Donald Trump's State of the Union was "Psycho" without the shower scene.
(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Dear Friends: Before we begin, I owe you an explanation. Why am I writing about a Democratic Senate primary in America's largest red state, where no Democrat's won statewide office since 1994? And why focus on James Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian and member of the Texas House of Representatives, now trying to catapult himself into the U.S. Senate?

Maybe it's because I've never lost faith in what Jesse Jackson, one of my all-time heroes, preached: "Keep Hope Alive!" Yes, "even in Texas," he might have added. But there are three other practical reasons.

One, unlike Florida or South Carolina, I've never considered Texas a lost cause. After all, this is the state that gave us some of our greatest Democrats: Sam Rayburn, LBJ, Lloyd Bentsen, Barbara Jordan, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower and Kinky Friedman. Texas can't be all bad. Remember, Beto O'Rourke came within three points of defeating Ted Cruz in 2018.

Two, I must admit, I have a weakness for former seminarians running for office. It started in 1968 with Eugene McCarthy, where I got my start in politics. It continued with Father Robert Drinan, who defied Pope Paul II by running for, winning and serving in Congress for 10 years. Without trying to force their own religious beliefs on anybody, people of faith can bring a necessary moral perspective to issues we're dealing with today.

Three, because - whether he ends up running against boring incumbent John Cornyn or, better yet, against disgraced, impeached attorney general Ken Paxton - I think Talarico is the Democrats' best hope. I like his primary opponent, Representative Jasmine Crockett. She's a dynamite member of Congress. I'd vote for her against Cornyn or Paxton in a heartbeat. But, given Texas politics, it looks like Talarico has a better shot at winning statewide.

If, like most Americans outside of Texas, you're not familiar with James Talarico, I encourage you to watch his interview on February 16, with Stephen Colbert. Here's the link: https://x.com/MajorityDems/status/2023776310699725205?s=20. It's only 14 minutes long. Watch the whole thing.

But, first, a little background. Colbert had lined up this interview long ahead of time, but at the last minute, his CBS bosses ordered him to cancel it because they feared Trump's FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who's been waging war against late-night hosts, would force them to offer equal time to all other candidates in the Senate race. Which is in itself ironic since the "Fairness Doctrine," which did require equal time for all candidates, was canceled by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

That's when Colbert "trumped" them all. Banned from talking to Talarico on CBS, he interviewed him, instead, on YouTube, where it immediately went "viral." In 24 hours, the Talarico campaign pulled in $2.5 million in campaign contributions. And, as of this writing, Talarico's YouTube interview has garnered 7.3 million views - far, far more than watch "The Late Show." As Colbert needled his cowardly CBS bosses, "I wish we could have put it on the show where no one would have watched it."

If Talarico hadn't already captured my attention, he clearly did so when asked by Colbert about the influence of the so-called "religious right," extreme conservatives who are the core of Donald Trump's supporters. Talarico exposed them for the hypocrites they are.

"Well, for 50 years, the religious right, a political movement - that is the perfect description for it," he told Colbert. "They convinced a lot of our fellow Christians that the most important issues were abortion and gay marriage. Two issues that aren't mentioned in the Bible. Two issues that Jesus never talked about."

What is Christianity all about? Talarico's got it right. "Jesus in Matthew 25 tells us exactly how you and I and every one of our fellow believers, how we're gonna be judged and how we're gonna be saved," he continued: "by feeding the hungry, by healing the sick, by welcoming the stranger. Nothing about going to church, nothing about voting Republican. It was all about how you treat other people."

And he challenged those phony pious preachers who wrap themselves in the cloak of religion in order to support a foul-mouthed, twice-divorced, convicted sexual abuser, and his inhumane treatment of immigrants. "Don't tell me what you believe," Talarico said, "Show me how you treat other people, and I'll tell you what you believe."

Amen! It's now up to the good people of Texas to redeem themselves. All the rest of us can do is say a prayer. Keep hope alive!

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

If anything, Donald Trump is consistent. Everything he does is bad. The big things and the little things.

Of course, Trump's big, bad things get the most attention: sending troops into American cities; kidnapping the president of another country and throwing him in prison; blowing up small boats in the Caribbean and killing all onboard; tweeting out racist images; and tearing down half of the White House.

The problem is, the spotlight on the big stuff takes attention from all the other bad things Trump is doing - which may not have the same shocking impact, but are just as insidious.

Latest example: following his orders, the National Park Service took down the rainbow flag from the Stonewall National Monument in New York - which follows removal of signs last year noting the important role of transsexuals in Stonewall's history. Why? Because Trump doesn't want people to know that gay activists had anything to do with the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

Taking down the LGBTQ flag didn't trigger any national headlines. But it should have. It's all part of Trump's determined efforts to rewrite - or, more accurately, to "whitewash" - American history.

It started on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, with an executive order pardoning some 1,600 armed protesters who stormed the United States Capitol. Under Trump's edict, Jan. 6, 2021 should no longer be condemned as an insurrection against the government, the destruction of federal property or an assault on police officers. History should now remember January 6th as nothing but a peaceful protest.

Next, Trump signed an executive order on March 27, 2025 called "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" - which, in truth, should have been dubbed "Rewriting and Telling Lies about American History" - ordering federal agencies to remove any historical evidence that "fosters a sense of national shame" - as if we have nothing to be ashamed of.

Making his case, Trump accused the Smithsonian Institution of being "out of control" because the new African-American museum portrayed "how bad slavery was." (He didn't say what was "good" about it).

For almost a year, the National Park Service - which used to be the most highly regarded and least-political of federal agencies - has shamelessly carried out Trump's executive order by erasing any evidence that straight, white Americans have ever done anything wrong.

At the President's House in Philadelphia, NPS agents removed plaques commemorating nine enslaved Black Americans who lived there, serving George and Martha Washington. In Trump's America, they just didn't exist.

At all national monuments, as first reported by the Washington Post, officials were ordered to no longer display a famous 1863 photo of a man named Peter, known as the "Scourged Back." Because the photo of a man's back heavily scarred by whipping showed only one side of slavery.

At California's Muir Woods, NPS staff removed signage that acknowledged the roles of Native American Miwok Americans and conservation-minded Marin County women in saving the redwoods. Instead, all credit for creating the park goes to influential, philanthropic white men.

At the National Portrait Gallery, the text under Trump's portrait was changed to eliminate any mention of two impeachments during his first term. The text under Bill Clinton's portrait, however, still states he was impeached for "lying under oath about a sexual relationship he had with a White House intern."

This week, the White House attempted to rewrite the history of the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), celebrating it as a glorious victory against Latin American aggressors, rather than what most historians agree was an attempt to seize lands from Mexico, where slavery was prohibited, in order to create more slave states.

Meanwhile, in some red states, efforts are underway to rewrite American history books, drop certain courses and remove critical books from libraries in order to deny students any knowledge of the shameless treatment of Native Americans or Black Americans - thus creating an entire generation ignorant of history. Which would be a real tragedy. Because unless you know and accept the reality of history, both the good and the bad, you can never apply the lessons of history to charting a better future.

In the long run, Trump will lose his battle to rewrite history. As soon as he's gone, historians will go back to telling the truth about America. And that will include painting Donald Trump as the most dishonest, disgusting, hateful, ignorant, ineffective, divisive, egomaniacal, gold-digging, feckless president in history. No historian can dispute that. It's a fact.

(C)2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.