Much has been said of President Donald Trump’s record-long State of the Union address on Tuesday, with critics flagging several falsehoods or racist attacks peppered throughout the nearly three-hour speech, but for The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial board, one thing stood out above all others.
“The main political news in the speech is that there isn’t much that Mr. Trump wants Republicans in Congress to do for the rest of this year,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote in a column published on Wednesday.
When he wasn’t attacking Somali Americans or citing “misleading” figures on American investments, Trump mostly spent his address touting his administration's accomplishments over the past 12 months, including the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and the nationwide immigration enforcement operations. Largely absent from the speech, the Journal’s editorial board argued, were mentions of any future priorities.
“The President highlighted the GOP’s greatest hits from 2025, especially on taxes. But his point was mostly to persuade Americans that the economy is better than they say it is in polls,” the column reads. “More striking is that Mr. Trump seems to have given up on getting anything done in this Congress.”
Trump did make some mention of future priorities, notably the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require all Americans to produce proof of U.S. citizenship to be eligible to vote that critics have warned could significantly depress voter turnout. He also made brief mention of a plan to create a new retirement program aimed at assisting lower-income workers.
Otherwise, Trump was noticeably silent in advancing any new initiatives tied to his signature policy priorities, the Journal’s editorial board observed.
“Immigration reform? Nothing but more enforcement and nothing to expand legal pathways to ease the labor shortage. Permitting reform needed for energy and public works? We didn’t hear it,” the column reads.
“Mr. Trump also made no case for increasing defense spending and appears to have dropped his target of $1.5 trillion a year for the military. He’s fooling the public by saying the U.S. deterrent force is stronger than it really is.”