Trump's big, long, State of the Union speech
Americast
BBC
4.3 • 3.1K Ratings
🗓️ 25 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Americast team assembles for a late evening/early morning special as President Trump delivers the longest State of the Union address ever. On the agenda was a full-throated defence of the administration’s record, hailing a "turnaround for the ages,” whilst playing down the Supreme Court's ruling against his signature tariff policy (with the judges themselves in the crowd).
Despite the speech lasting nearly two hours, there was little to suggest a change of course from Trump’s favourite taking points. He focused on the economy, immigration, the Democrats…. And the US men’s olympic hockey team.
But with growing voter dissatisfaction souring the polls, will Trump’s sales pitch be enough to counter sliding approval ratings and convince voters to stick with him for November's midterm election?
HOSTS: • Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter • Sarah Smith, North America Editor • Anthony Zurcher, North America Correspondent
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This episode was made by Rufus Gray, Grace Reeve and Kris Jalowiecki. The technical producer was Stephen Bailey. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:05.0 | It is 11 o'clock at night here in Washington, 4 o'clock in the morning in the UK, |
| 0:11.0 | and Donald Trump has just finished delivering the longest-ever State of the Union address, |
| 0:17.0 | an hour and 48 minutes of him telling us all the great things. |
| 0:24.2 | He says he's done for America in the last 12 months and telling voters, |
| 0:27.1 | they really ought to be very happy with what he's done for them. |
| 0:29.6 | Our country is winning again. |
| 0:34.5 | In fact, we're winning so much that we really don't know what to do about it. |
| 0:37.9 | People are asking me, please, please, please, Mr. President, we're winning too much. |
| 0:40.5 | We can't take it anymore. |
| 0:42.2 | We're not used to winning in our country |
| 0:44.1 | until you came along. |
| 0:45.9 | We're just always losing, but now we're winning too much. |
| 0:49.9 | And I say, no, no, no, you're going to win again. |
| 0:53.4 | You're going to win big. You're going to win bigger than ever. And to prove, no, no, no, you're going to win again. You're going to win big. |
| 0:55.0 | You're going to win bigger than ever. |
| 0:57.1 | And to prove that point, to prove that point, here with us tonight is a group of winners |
| 1:02.7 | who just made the entire nation proud. |
| 1:06.2 | The men's gold medal Olympic hockey team. |
| 1:10.5 | Come on in. Okay, the speech is just over, and we are assembling. Come on in. |
| 1:12.0 | Okay, the speech is just over and we are assembling. |
| 1:14.6 | And I promise we'll get to the hockey players later on. |
... |
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