{"id":44021,"date":"2026-02-24T11:05:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=44021"},"modified":"2026-02-24T11:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T17:05:23","slug":"state-of-the-union-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/02\/24\/state-of-the-union-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"State Of The Union, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <em>State of the Union<\/em> address, or <strong>SOTU<\/strong>, for 2026 may be quite predictable, and yet most at variance in the history <strong>SOTU<\/strong> presentations. I expect President Trump, who is facing multiple challenges, mostly of his own making, to treat this as a campaign rally rather than a sober status report, because the latter would put him in a very poor light. Wondering about that?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Tariffs<\/em>. His loss in <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/02\/20\/pushback-pushed-back-ctd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>Learning Resources<\/em><\/a> was a devastating riposte to his claims of having total freedom to impose tariffs. Don&#8217;t take his claims since then that his powers are greater than ever to actually be honest; my read is that he&#8217;s desperately trying to patch the leaky dinghy of State, and &#8230; he doesn&#8217;t know how to patch a dinghy. He&#8217;ll address the issue tonight, and it&#8217;ll be a repeat of his <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/02\/20\/pushback-pushed-back-ctd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">written claims<\/a>. <strong>SCOTUS<\/strong> blew a hole in his claims and he has no real way to rebut.<\/li>\n<li><em>House of Representatives<\/em>. His slim majority has been shrinking into near-oblivion, and now there&#8217;s rumors that Rep Gonzalez (R-TX) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2026\/02\/18\/tony-gonzales-staffer-fire-affair-text-brandon-herrera\/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">may be resigning soon<\/a>. His policies have led to the <em><strong>GOP<\/strong><\/em> House advantage being less than the Senate&#8217;s, and if Gonzalez departs then it&#8217;ll be temporarily at nothing, though there are upcoming special elections which might help put Speaker Johnson back in the black, so to speak.<\/li>\n<li><em>2020 Election<\/em>. Will he once again repeat his claims that he won the 2020 Presidential election, &#8220;in a landslide!&#8221; <strong>Sure<\/strong>. It&#8217;s part, even the principal glue, binding <strong>MAGA<\/strong> to him; its solvent, which he&#8217;s desperately fighting, is the <strong>Epstein Files<\/strong>. It also may have a function on his <a href=\"https:\/\/religiondispatches.org\/there-is-another-reason-trump-refuses-to-concede-the-election\/?utm_source=feedly&amp;utm_medium=rss&amp;utm_campaign=there-is-another-reason-trump-refuses-to-concede-the-election\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">religious side<\/a>, the repetition that prosperity theology uses to get what they want. They think.<\/li>\n<li><em>Epstein Files<\/em>. Bank on hearing how the release of the <strong>Epstein Files<\/strong> exonerated him. He&#8217;s hoping the great majority of <strong>MAGA<\/strong> isn&#8217;t going to go through the Epstein Files. He&#8217;s not wrong, but contending with those <strong>MAGA<\/strong> leaders who will and have gone through them is a major challenge. I&#8217;m guessing he&#8217;ll spend a good five minutes claiming exoneration.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don&#8217;t tune in to hear how things are going, although when they cast a flattering light on the President, he&#8217;ll mention them. Iran may be mentioned, the <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/02\/14\/too-easy-a-title-to-use-ctd\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em><strong>Gordie Howe<\/strong><\/em><\/a> bridge, etc.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;ll all about the President. Not the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The State of the Union address, or SOTU, for 2026 may be quite predictable, and yet most at variance in the history SOTU presentations. I expect President Trump, who is facing multiple challenges, mostly of his own making, to treat this as a campaign rally rather than a sober status \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2026\/02\/24\/state-of-the-union-2026\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44021"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44022,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44021\/revisions\/44022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}