You can count on President Donald Trump delivering a lengthy “State of the Union” address on Tuesday evening before a joint session of Congress, an annual tradition dating back to 1790.
We know it’s going to be a fulsome message because the president himself made that clear on Monday in talking about what to expect.
“It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about,” President Trump said from the White House.
Reports indicate the 45th and 47th chief executive has been working on the message with a host of advisors, including Ross Worthington, the White House director of speechwriting, chief of staff Susie Wiles, deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller, press secretary Karoline Leavitt, communications director Steven Cheung, and director of domestic policy counsel Vince Haley.
Dozens of Democrat lawmakers are planning to skip the speech and attend a counter-event instead. Leadership has encouraged those in the minority party who will be in the historic chamber to refrain from disrupting the presentation.
In addition to its extensive duration, you can also count on the president delving into some key topics and themes, especially America’s economic standing both at home and abroad.
“We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had,” President Trump said on Monday. “I’m making a speech [Tuesday] night and you’ll be hearing me say that.”
Simply put, he’ll be saying a lot of bad things are down and a lot of good things are up.
We’ll hear about tax cuts and the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” as well as a rise in annual earnings, and an historic stock market that continues to grow and rise more than it falls. “Affordability” is the big buzz word these days and you can count on that term coming up numerous times. Expect him to be talking about how to make the “American Dream” more affordable and attainable.
President Trump will undoubtedly also be talking about tensions in Iran, the fourth anniversary of the Ukraine/Russia war and the hard-won peace in other areas of the Middle East and around the world.
We’ll likely hear a lot about tariffs, the administration’s successful efforts to secure the southern border, the dramatic drop in fentanyl trafficking, and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) work to enforce immigration laws within the United States.
You can expect the president to applaud the largest one-year decline in homicides in U.S. history, as well as a nationwide drop in rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults. Drug overdoses have also fallen by more than 20%.
It’s also being reported that President Trump will welcome Sage Blair, a 14-year-old girl whose school hid her sexual confusion from her parents, a deception that triggered a cascading series of tragedy. Without parental involvement, Sage ran away from home, was kidnapped, drugged and raped. Sage, who attends Liberty University, has since been healed and reunited with her parents. The president will highlight her story and urge states to ban the sexual mutilation of minors.
Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk, is expected to be in attendance. The sober recognition of her unfathomable loss will contrast with the presence of Team USA’s gold-medal winning ice hockey team.
When President George Washington addressed Congress for the first time on January 8, 1790, he used just over 1,000 words to emphasize the young nation was “blessed” and enjoyed “rising credit and respectability.”
He also called for “the cool and deliberate exertion of your patriotism, firmness, and wisdom.” Washington stressed, “A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined.” Recognizing the country was growing, he encouraged the building of post offices and roads.
In that first “State of the Union” address, Washington made clear there was a significant difference between true freedom and recklessness disguised as freedom. He urged lawmakers “to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness – cherishing the first, avoiding the last – and uniting a speedy but temperate vigilance against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws.”
In short, self-government won’t work without self-discipline. Lawlessness inevitably leads to the loss of liberty.
It’s been just over 236 years since President Washington uttered those timeless words. The country has grown exponentially larger in size and citizenry, and much richer, too, but those warnings remain as relevant as ever in 2026.
President Trump is a president and not a pastor, but it would be good if he were to stress similar and even much larger and far more critical themes on Tuesday night. Politicians historically debate and declare the “state of the union” and often do so in economic, military, and geo-political terms. Yet as Christians, we know it goes much deeper into the spiritual.
Ultimately, a nation is only as strong as the hearts and minds of its people. It’s measured by how we treat the most vulnerable and fragile. It’s dependent on our relationship with reality — including that there are two sexes, male and female. There’s a correlation between thriving countries and thriving families, the basic and fundamental unit of society. Strong and loving marriages offer the best hope for producing spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically healthy children.
A truly healthy American Union isn’t obsessed with the digital and the virtual but rather committed to daily and real interactions between real people.
Two things can be simultaneously true and often are: the State of the Union can be strong on many important measures — but in desperate need of revival and restoration in other key and critical areas.
We are in desperate need of God’s wisdom — and President Trump and all our lawmakers are in desperate need of our prayers.
