Takeaways from Trump’s State of the Union address

US president Donald Trump has used his State of the Union address to sell a booming America, even as voters worry about the country’s economy.

Mr Trump started his speech to US congress in sales mode, delivering an upbeat vision of the American economy.

But that portrayal collides with the sentiment of Americans who remain anxious about their finances and feel they have not benefited from Mr Trump’s policies.

Here are the key takeaways from the address:

Much of the US is worried about the direction of the economy, but Mr Trump said the good times have arrived, insisting repeatedly that rising costs are no longer a problem.

“The roaring economy is roaring like never before,” he said. He cheered the lower cost of petrol, mortgage rates, prescription drug prices and the rising stock market, declaring: “Millions and millions of Americans are all gaining.”

Such optimism, as so many Americans are feeling economic strains, risks painting Mr Trump as out-of-touch, with just 39% of US adults approving of their president’s handling of the economy in February, according to AP-NORC polling.

However, Mr Trump focused much of the first hour of his speech on the economy, something Republicans had urged him to do as they head into the mid-term elections later this year.

For a president who always seems to be spoiling for a fight, Mr Trump also tried to summon Americans’ patriotic impulses.

In addition to the nation’s Olympic gold medal-winning hockey teams, he singled out war heroes and those who had taken brave stands in other countries, using the moment to bestow numerous presidential medals in an effort to give the address a more positive gloss.

It underlined the US president’s media savvy and understanding that even if a moment is not appreciated completely in real time, it can have an afterlife in the days following speech, especially on social media.

Yet in one revealing moment, Mr Trump lamented why he could not give a congressional medal to himself.

Tributes to the Olympic hockey teams and a Second World War veteran did not unify the room for long.

The Republican president soon took aim at Democrats and blamed them for many of America’s ills.

Mr Trump said rising health care premiums in the US are “caused by you”, suggesting Democrats “are not protecting” Social Security and blaming them for the nation’s affordability crunch.

“You caused that problem. You caused that problem,” Mr Trump said as he glared at the Democratic side of the room.

He seemed to become angrier as the speech progressed.

“These people are crazy, I’m telling you, they’re crazy,” he said. “Democrats are destroying this country.”

Mr Trump’s Maga base loves such aggression. It is unclear, however, if the rest of the country feels the same.

By Mr Trump’s standards, he held his tongue when it came to the country’s supreme court.

After the court struck down his tariff policy last week, Mr Trump said the justices who voted against one of his signature issues were an “embarrassment to their families”. By Tuesday, he simply called the ruling “unfortunate”.

Mr Trump sought to treat the ruling with indifference, insisting that tariff revenues were “saving” the US, ignoring the fact that the levies have not made a significant dent in government debt.

He said the tariffs were paid by foreign countries even as virtually every study concludes that costs have been paid by US firms and consumers.

At one point, he seemed to take the long view that history would ultimately vindicate him even if the supreme court would not.

“As time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great burden off the people that I love,” he said.

That is unlikely. US federal income tax is authorised by the 16th amendment to the American constitution and the power to collect revenue is ultimately defined by congress, not the president.

The president also used the speech to reprise his attack on the integrity of US elections.

“Cheating is rampant in our elections,” Mr Trump said.

He has made such claims for years, focused on his 2020 election loss, claims rejected by dozens of courts and his own attorney general at the time.

But the timing of Tuesday’s prime-time claims, less than nine months before voters across America are scheduled to decide control of congress, was noteworthy. So, too, was Mr Trump’s suggestion that he would take action to address a problem that does not appear to exist.

“They want to cheat. They have cheated, and their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat,” Mr Trump said of Democrats. “And we’re going to stop it. We have to stop it.”

Mr Trump is urging US congress to pass a bill requiring voters to show a photo ID before casting ballots. He also recently vowed to enact an executive order to address the issue, although the White House has not clarified what that might entail.

Mr Trump has highlighted immigration since the very first speech in which he announced his 2016 presidential campaign.

On Tuesday night in Washington, he revived much of the same language he has used throughout the past decade, blasting “criminal aliens” and warning of “drug lords, murderers all over our country”.

What he did not mention was aggressive immigration enforcement tactics that threatened to bring the US to the brink earlier this year.

He also failed to mention the deaths of two US citizens in Minneapolis last month at the hands of federal agents.

Indeed, it was Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib who shouted that “Alex wasn’t a criminal”, referring to Alex Pretti, one of the US citizens killed in Minneapolis.

During her Democratic rebuttal, Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger said law enforcement must work to build trust in communities and told Mr Trump that “every minute spent sowing fear is a minute not investigating murders”.

Mr Trump said nothing of his administration’s shift in tactics, including a drawdown of agents in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. And he made no acknowledgment of the broad concerns in the US about his approach on immigration, as demonstrated by the 60% of US adults who disapproved of the president’s handling of the issue in February, according to AP-NORC polling.

The US leader has already built up the largest America military presence in the Middle East in decades. And in his speech, he outlined a rationale for using those forces to launch a major military strike against Iran.

Mr Trump said that Iran and its proxies have “spread nothing but terrorism, death and hate”, adding that its leaders killed at least 32,000 protesters in recent weeks, which is at the further end of estimates over the death toll.

The US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency has so far counted more than 7,000 dead and believes the death toll is far higher. Iran’s government offered its only death toll on January 21, saying 3,117 people were killed.

Mr Trump also warned that the nation has developed missiles that can threaten Europe and is working on armaments “that will soon reach” the US.

“My preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy,” he said.

“But one thing is certain: I will never allow the world’s number one sponsor of terror – which they are, by far – to have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let that happen.”

The US president, ever mindful of records that allow him to say he was the first, the best or had done the most, succeeded clearly on one thing: he beat his own record for the longest, clocking in at just under one hour and 48 minutes.