Nickels: A classic Trump performance

I watched President Trump’s State of the Union address from start to finish, realizing that no matter how good it was, Democrats would grumble and find fault. Yet one of the first things that struck me about the speech was the president’s articulate and confident command of the language, and his straightforward manner of delivery. 

Democrats lately have been toying with the lie that Trump’s mental capabilities are on the decline. They have been making all sorts of accusations about his cognitive abilities, insisting that his speeches and comments are splintered and illogical and follow a zigzag path. 

You repeat a lie like this often enough, and ordinary Democrats in the pews begin to believe it. On NPR — the local Philly affiliate, WHYY — I recall an interview with an “expert” who went on about the blue or purple marks on the president’s hands that usually come from an improperly administered IV before an MRI. The “expert” and the host were both trying to read something deeper into those marks, implying that they were signs that Trump’s brain cells were in scrambled egg freefall. 

Even some Trump supporters caught the fever of this Democrat lie and began to question the president’s health. “He must be dying because his face looks weird.” Or, “He’s aged a lot since last year’s State of the Union; I don’t think he’s well.”  

Dealing with ideological Democrats everyday would age anyone. 

As the longest speech in State of the Union history, Trump’s delivery can only be described as epic, without a single glitch or what the Democrats would call “Trump’s zigzag illogical verbal path.” Anyone who speaks this long — whether there’s a teleprompter or not — will occasionally mispronounce a word. This is when the sheer length of the speech causes the tongue to sometimes get in the way of perfect pronunciation like a piece of cotton.  

This was the only “fault” I could detect in the speech, though it’s not really a fault at all. Could Joe Biden have gone on as long with such energy, feeling and conviction? If anything, this year’s State of the Union address put to rest forever the lie that there’s something wrong Trump’s mental and verbal capabilities.

The empty seats caused by Democrats boycotting the speech were not too obvious, although once Trump got started up popped Al Green (D-Texas) with his usual shenanigans. The bearded TDS prankster held a sign that read, “Black People Aren’t Apes.” The poor man was quickly escorted out of the hall but at least he got his fifteen minutes of Democrat infamy. Trump wisely ignored the outburst but already you could feel the temperature rising among the seated, disgruntled Democrats. 

When Trump mentioned his “war” on congressional insider trading, an amazing thing occurred: Elizabeth Warren, suited in blue, stood up and applauded. Trump said, “They stood up for that. I can’t believe it,” then asked if Nancy Pelosi stood up. Pelosi did not stand but some say she could be seen shaking her head during the remark. Pelosi’s act of hostility in 2020 when she tore up Trump’s 2020 State of the Union speech on national TV probably inspired ten million cases of TDS. For this year’s address, Pelosi was wearing all white as were members of the Democratic Women's Caucus to honor “the fight (alluding to the women victims in the Epstein files) that women have always had and to signal we are still in the fight.”

These are the same progressive ladies, by the way, who cannot define what a woman is.

After this, the Democrat clown show flowered like Baudelaire’s “Flowers of Evil.”

“You’re the most corrupt president!” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, her mouth twisted like a Philly pretzel, screamed.  

Sitting beside her was Rep. IIhan Omar (D-Minnesota) in her trademark headscarf. The two were seated so close together it seemed to suggest that doctrinaire political Muslims find it hard to assimilate in a crowd of non-Muslims. It was an “us against the world” chumming up.  Seated in front of them was a Caucasian Democrat female politician with streaked short gray hair impeccably styled, who managed to look over at Tlaib when the screaming was at its highest pitch. Her backward look was not corrective, suggesting that Tlaib sounded crazy or off-kilter. Rather, it had a nonchalant feel to it, like Tlaib was really speaking for every seated Democrat. 

When Trump mentioned the Minnesota Somalia financial scandal, Omar jumped into the fray like a rabid lynx known to attack the ankles of people in the forests of Romania.  

Both Omar and Tlaib then began to bait the president in open verbal combat, an action that should have gotten them both kicked out of the assembly like Rep. Green and his homemade ape sign. Watching them hurl hateful catcalls and insults at the president, it was hard to believe they were real United States elected representatives. 

Critics of the speech, like Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Delaware), aka Timothy McBride, commented that Trump’s comments on the transitioning of children (in public schools) against or without their parents’ wishes, made her feel “…uncomfortable and disrespected as a woman.”

Rep. McBride said this despite the fact that the State of the Union address is not about personal validation but about national policy. 

(Newsflash: In an article about McBride’s transition in the Epoch Times, we read that “[McBride] as a child roamed the internet to learn how transgender people have lived throughout history and cultures. Two trans women of colour – Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson – appear to have made a particular impression. They were at the vanguard of the modern LGBTQ movement, their paths crossing at the famous Stonewall riots in New York…” Full stop for here we have nothing but lies: Marsha P. Johnson was a gay man who sometimes dressed up as a drag queen. He never identified as a woman. Rivera was also a drag queen. Nobody called themselves transgender in 1969.)  

The most egregious episode of the evening was when Trump challenged every lawmaker to stand if they believe their first duty is to protect American citizens rather than illegal aliens. The Democrats — with the eyes of nation watching — remained seated. 

"These people are crazy. I'm telling you, they're crazy," Trump said moments later. “Democrats are destroying our country.”

This was not Trumpian hyperbole. Ryan James Girdusky, a GOP strategist, commented that the Democratic preference for illegal aliens over American citizens was a major misstep. “A billion dollar ad (for the midterms) just wrote itself because they wouldn’t stand,” he said. 

Democrats have nothing to offer the American people except, as Speaker Johnson mentioned in November of last year, “A woke and weak form of government.” That means re-opening the border so millions more illegal aliens can flood the country; resurrecting DEI, the defund the police movement, and kickstarting a host of social justice movements like BLM and trans ideology in the schools and military.

It also means remembering not to stand when the president mentions the grisly murder of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee in August 2025, on a train in North Carolina.

“The only issue they’ve got is we hate Trump, and anything he says is going to be wrong,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said about the seated Democrats. 

“And a lot of things President Trump wants are things that are good for our country, and I don’t think it’s a good political choice for the Democrats to just say anything that President Trump wants, we’re gonna be against.”

But that’s the way they are, and it’s pathetic.