Trump Delivers State of the Union Focused on Economy Amid Democratic Boycotts

On a late February evening, President Trump addressed a fractured Congress and a watching nation from the Capitol, centering his State of the Union on the economy and the cost of living — themes his administration had long staked its legitimacy upon. The night was as much a portrait of American political division as it was a policy address: formal Democratic rebuttals, deliberate boycotts, and a guest list curated to tell competing stories about whose suffering and whose triumphs belong at the center of national life.