Donald Trump Needs a Foil, and He Knows It

What last night’s State of the Union address revealed.

State of the Union addresses are many things: patriotic rituals, partisan pep rallies, political theater.

Last night, President Donald Trump briefly turned his address to Congress into something new: a live poll.

The speeches have long been about more than just what the president says; they are also about how the audience responds in the room. When does the opposition party stand and applaud? Was that Supreme Court justice grimacing?

But Trump never fails to make the implicit explicit, and last night, he lifted this long-running parlor game out of the shadows, into a central element of his address.

“One of the great things about the State of the Union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe,” Trump said about an hour into his 108-minute speech, the longest in State of the Union history. “So, tonight, I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support: the first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Cut to a standing ovation from Republican lawmakers, and stony silence from the Democratic side of the aisle. Trump shook his head and gestured out at the seated Democrats, letting the moment last for several beats. “Isn’t that a shame?” Trump said. “You should be ashamed of yourself, not standing up.”

The moment represented a fundamental truth about Trump’s political career: He may love having the stage all to himself, but — paradoxically — he does better when he shares it.

Over the last decade, Trump has shown himself to be a ruthlessly effective campaigner, cutting rivals down to size and showing a keen ability to mold their vulnerabilities into a dominant narrative: “Crooked Hillary.” “Sleepy Joe.” (Even, once upon a time, “Little Marco.”) He is at his best politically when he has someone he can hold up as a villain, and he can pummel them, again and again and again.

His performance is more uneven, on the other hand, when he is squarely in the spotlight (unfortunately for him, his favorite place to be). Twice now, he has shown himself to be an expert attack dog, persuading Americans that he is a better choice than his alternative, before watching his poll numbers falter as soon as he switched from campaigning to governing. It is easier to thrash someone else’s economy, Trump has found, than to lead one for yourself.

Thirteen months into his second term, with his popularity sagging and the midterms approaching, Trump now finds himself in desperate need of a foil — and he knows it.

Trump’s favorite pronoun is usually “I”: last night, he used it 119 times. But he used “they” even more (122 times), often to denounce the assembled Democrats.

“Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word ‘affordability,’ a word, they just used it,” Trump said, railing against Biden-era policies and seeking to place blame for the economy on his predecessor. “Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused that problem. They knew their statements were a lie. They knew it. They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten, lie. Their policies created the high prices.”

“We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance,” Trump said at another point.

“They have instituted another Democrat shutdown,” he added later, referring to the ongoing funding gap for the Department of Homeland Security, now in its 12th day.

Seeking to recreate the success of his 2024 ad needling Democrats on transgender issues, Trump said last night: “Surely, we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will. Who would believe that we’ve been talking about that? We must ban it and we must ban it immediately.”

When Democrats stayed seated, the president ad-libbed: “Look, nobody stands up. These people are crazy. I’m telling you, they’re crazy.”

Much of the address proceeded this way, as Trump tried to steer focus away from matters like the Epstein Files or the recent killings of American citizens by immigration agents, and towards wedge issues where he could paint Democrats as prioritizing illegal immigrants or transgender Americans (as the ad put it: for they/them, not for you).

Ever the producer, Trump placed these moments between others where he could seize the mantle of patriotism, tying himself to groups that no one could object to, like 100-year-old veterans and Olympic gold medalists. Over the course of the speech, Trump awarded two Purple Hearts, two Medals of Honor, the Legion of Merit, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom — in addition to bringing in the U.S. men’s hockey team mid-speech and orchestrating a live reunion between a Venezuelan political prisoner and his niece.

Trump similarly focused on policies that command broad support, calling on Congress to pass populist initiatives like banning investment firms from buying single-family homes and codifying his most-favored-nation drug-pricing deals. He tried to hover in safe territory, while shoving Democrats into the danger zone. They’re extreme; I’m just pushing common-sense.

The president repeatedly singled out individual Democrats, seeming to try to goad them into responding (and creating a repeat of last year, when the party’s heckling and sign-waving mostly fell flat). “Did Nancy Pelosi stand up, if she’s here?” Trump asked after calling on Congress to pass a bill banning themselves from trading stocks. (New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani might have made for a good foil, too, except Trump stepped on attack against the democratic socialist by saying, “I think he’s a nice guy, actually, speak to him a lot. Bad policy, but nice guy.” Reportedly, the two are texting buddies.)

Knowing that few voters are turning on a television to watch an hour-and-a-half-plus political speech in 2026, these moments — celebrating feel-good stories and confronting Democrats — all seemed to be engineered to be viral social media clips as much as anything. Indeed, the White House has posted several of them on TikTok; the best-performing, closing in on 1 million views, is the moment when he dared Democrats not to agree that the U.S. government must put American citizens, not illegal immigrants, first.

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As far as political strategy goes, this isn’t a bad one.

Pick your poll, and they’ll all tell you that Donald Trump is incredibly unpopular: a Washington Post/ABC survey says that 60% of Americans now disapprove of his job performance, a first since January 6, 2021; meanwhile, per CNN, only one-quarter of Independents approve of his second term, an all-time low and a political disaster.

But as Trump seems to realize, perhaps his only saving grace is that Democrats are almost as unpopular.

According to a recent AP/NORC poll, the percentages of Americans who say they trust Republicans more on the economy and immigration has slipped in recent months — but remains higher than the percentage who say they trust Democrats. Democrats boast an advantage on health care, but on the all-important question of cost of living, the two parties are tied: 27% say they trust Republicans more, 27% say Democrats. Even more, 36%, say neither.

That Post/ABC poll showing Trump with a 60% disapproval rating (and a 39% approval rating)? It also shows a strikingly competitive midterm environment, with 47% of registered voters saying they would vote for a Democratic congressional candidate this fall and 45% saying they would vote for a Republican. That’s a much smaller gap than you might expect based on Trump’s approval rating; at this point in 2018, Trump was about as unpopular but the Democratic advantage on the Post/ABC generic ballot was 10 points larger.

Another Post poll, from September, found that more Americans said the Democratic Party was “too liberal” (54%) than said the Republican Party was “too conservative” (49%). Trump’s best hope at political survival, like in 2024, is convincing Americans that, whatever they think of him, his opposition is more extreme, a task he seemed focused on last night.

Here, he finds himself in the same exact place as Joe Biden, confronted with an economy that is neither crashing nor soaring — and the need to convince Americans that they should accept that as a win, rather than a reason for mounting dissatisfaction. “The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” Trump said last night, something polls show that few Americans believe.

In that situation, Biden also used his State of the Union addresses to promote populist economic proposals and elevate a foil: in his 2024 speech, he repeatedly railed against “my predecessor,” meaning Trump. In Biden’s case, the speech worked to temporarily solidify support from fellow Democrats and assuage their chief concerns about him (his age).

But it did nothing to help his overall political position or to change Americans’ perceptions of the economy. Within a few months, he would drop out of the presidential race.

If Trump’s speech also successfully rallies his base — which is much less enthused about the midterms than Democrats — then it will be something of a success. But it is hard to see the address solving any of his bigger problems.

Like Biden, Trump often complains that he is not getting enough credit for his policy achievements. According to an Echelon Insights poll before the State of the Union, 88% of voters have heard “some” or “a lot” about the ICE raids and protests in Minnesota, while 76% have heard about Trump’s hopes of acquiring Greenland.

Markedly fewer (45%) have heard about “Trump accounts,” the investment accounts for children, or about TrumpRx, the president’s new portal to access discounts on prescription drugs (42%). Trump promoted both initiatives in his address last night, but in all likelihood, most of the viewers who were watching are the type of highly engaged voters who already knew. (One bright spot in the poll: 60% of Americans have heard about Trump’s elimination of tax on tips. Interestingly, Trump told news anchors before the speech that he would announce a new slate of tax cuts to be passed through the party-line reconciliation process, but he never did so in his address. In what could be his last State of the Union speech with a Republican House speaker behind him, Trump signaled no plans for another reconciliation package, as some Republicans had hoped.)

Trump’s claims throughout his speech often elided context: Trump boasted about having “lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record, off of food stamps,” making it sound like he had rescued them from poverty. In fact, that is the number of Americans expected to lose food stamp benefits due to new work requirements enacted by the One Big Beautiful Bill. Trump said that he had secured commitments for more than $18 trillion in investments in the U.S. economy, a number that appears highly exaggerated. He took credit for a retirement savings plan that was actually the result of a Biden-era law.

Trump’s speech also frequently lacked focus, veering from topic to topic over the course of 100+ minutes, but never proposing a coherent legislative agenda or message for the midterms. The Democratic response, delivered by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger, was focused around three central questions: “Is the president working to make life more affordable for you and your family? Is the president working to keep Americans safe, both at home and abroad? Is the president working for you?”

Like incumbent presidents before him, Trump can try to make his opposition party the focus of the midterms — but it is more likely that the contest will be a referendum on these questions, than on anything a grab-bag of populist proposals or a few live medal presentations can fix.

In a speech focused on hugging popular policies and groups, and placing Democrats on the losing side of several issues, Trump dropped this strategy just once, to praise his beloved tariffs and bash the Supreme Court (with some justices in attendance) for its “disappointing ruling” last week.

But polls show the tariffs to be deeply unpopular, and helping fuel the perception that Trump has the wrong priorities. Voters overwhelmingly blame Trump, not Biden, for the state of the economy, with tariffs playing no small part.

Elevating an unpopular opposition isn’t an unreasonable strategy for a president in Trump’s position. But with perceptions of the economy already hardened, and Trump’s year of constant movement having already shoved Democrats out of the limelight and put himself there instead, it may simply be too late.