President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address may have been a more buttoned-up affair than his freewheeling campaign rallies—but the president didn’t veer too far from his talking points on the stump. Sandwiched between the Iowa caucus and Wednesday’s Senate impeachment vote, Trump’s State of the Union was a dramatically partisan affair with an eye toward November, as the president delivered an address that previewed his arguments against Democratic rivals. Cycling through topics like immigration and health care, Trump warned Americans against the dangers of “socialism” and “illegal aliens” while throwing red meat to his Republican base—and honoring one of its most divisive figures.
Speaking from the House Chamber, Trump touched on all of his favorite right-wing topics, from touting his “long, tall, and very powerful wall” and economic wins (with misleading claims), to railing against sanctuary cities and late-term abortion. But as self-avowed Democratic Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders emerges as a clear frontrunner in the 2020 primary, the president also used his speech to seemingly respond to his candidacy with a thinly-veiled attack on the horrors of socialism. Trump specifically criticized socialist Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in his speech, warning viewers that “socialism destroys nations.”
The president also took aim at the Medicare for All policy pushed by candidates like Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, suggesting the argument he’ll make during the general election by claiming that Medicare for All would “bankrupt our Nation by providing free taxpayer-funded healthcare to millions of illegal aliens, forcing taxpayers to subsidize free care for anyone in the world who unlawfully crosses our borders.” “These proposals would raid the Medicare benefits our seniors depend on, while acting as a powerful lure for illegal immigration,” Trump claimed, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi sat behind the president mouthing, “Not true.” Trump also emphasized the anti-Medicare for All talking point that the policy would take away Americans’ private insurance and abolish the private health insurance industry, claiming that the policy would “take away your healthcare.” (The Trump administration, it should be noted, has gone to court to actually take away Americans’ health care by abolishing the Affordable Care Act and its protections for preexisting conditions.) “To those watching at home tonight, I want you to know: We will never let socialism destroy American healthcare!” Trump said.
As the president took aim at his Democratic rivals—including predecessor President Barack Obama, with repeated digs at the failings of the “previous administration”—Trump also made overt attempts to appeal to the Republican base whose votes he’ll need to shore up in November. The president emphasized his promise to uphold the Second Amendment, appealed to Christian conservatives with talk of how America “cherish[es] religion,” and touted his “record-setting tax cuts”—which, like many claims in Trump’s speech, is not actually true. But perhaps no moment threw Trump’s pandering to the right into as sharp relief as when he honored conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, whom the president not only singled out in his speech, but also immediately awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the middle of his address. “Thank you for your decades of tireless devotion to our country,” Trump told the controversial radio host, describing Limbaugh as “the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.”
Trump’s speech underlined what was from the start a distinctly partisan event. The State of the Union kicked off with Trump pointedly refusing to shake Pelosi’s hand, moments before the House speaker declined to say, as traditional, that she had “the high privilege and distinct honor” of presenting the president to Congress. (Pelosi instead only said, “Members of Congress, the President of the United States.”) As the president spoke from the room in which House lawmakers recently voted for his impeachment, Democrats offered a muted and at times defiant response to Trump’s speech, openly objecting to Limbaugh’s honor and chanting “H.R. 3,” a prescription drug bill that’s been held up in the Senate, when Trump claimed to support lowering prescription drug prices. A handful of Democratic lawmakers even walked out of the chamber entirely. Republicans, meanwhile, predictably gave Trump a series of enthusiastic standing ovations, along with a campaign rally-style chant of “four more years.”