“This is going to be great television,” said President Donald Trump amid the remarkable meeting meltdown with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last Friday. That comment came to mind as I watched Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last night (not a State of the Union because he’s been in office less than two months). At more than 90 minutes — a modern record — it had to be great television.

Democrats came prepared to disrupt Trump early and often, interrupting with jeers and boos. Just a few minutes into the speech, House Speaker Mike Johnson intervened with a gaveled call to order. When Democrats continued their obnoxious behavior, he had the sergeant at arms remove Representative Al Green. It soon quieted down, for the most part.

Remember when Democrats lost their minds when Republican Joe Wilson shouted “You lie!” at Barack Obama during a State of the Union? Decorum was violated. Norms were destroyed. How could we even go on as a nation?

Speaking of norms, many Democrats showed up wearing pink to show that they “support women.” The irony, of course, is that not a single Senate Democrat voted on Monday to advance a bill banning men from women’s sports. Who wants to tell them that wearing pink doesn’t spare women the indignity and injury of playing sports against men pretending to be women?

Trump also came prepared. From beginning to end, he rubbed Democrats’ faces in his victories and their losses — especially the 2024 election results. Unlike the last president, there was no hypocritical call for “unity” in this address. Trump won, and he let Democrats know it, repeatedly.

He also reminded the country just how reflexively Democrats oppose everything he says or does:

This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and, once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud. Nothing I can do. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations, or announce the answers to greatest economy in history or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand, and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements. They won’t do it no matter what. Five, five times I’ve been up here. It’s very sad. And it just shouldn’t be this way.

All they could do was scowl, hold up their cute little opposition signs, or suck their dentures like Nancy Pelosi.

That moment was masterful because then Democrats sat on their hands when Trump spoke of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray, two murder victims thanks to Joe Biden’s open border. They couldn’t even muster anything for DJ Daniel, a 13-year-old cancer survivor who dreams of being a police officer and whom Trump appointed to be an honorary Secret Service agent. They most certainly couldn’t cheer for Trump’s announcement “that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible” for the bombing in Kabul that killed 13 Americans during Biden’s disgraceful surrender and retreat from Afghanistan.

Republicans don’t behave anywhere near so disgracefully for Democrat presidents. Heck, Democrats didn’t either until Trump Derangement Syndrome swept them like a plague.

Given those observations, I wanted to offer a bulleted list of the accomplishments Trump noted last night. “We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplish in four years or eight years,” he said, “and we are just getting started.” Importantly, he noted, “For the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction.”

• “I have signed nearly 100 executive orders and taken more than 400 executive actions.”

• “Illegal border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded.”

• “I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid.”

• “I terminated the ridiculous ‘green new scam.’ I withdrew from the unfair Paris climate accord. … We ended all of Biden’s environmental restrictions. … We ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate.”

• “I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization. And I also withdrew from the anti-American UN Human Rights Council.”

• “I have directed that for every one new regulation, 10 old regulations must be eliminated.”

• “We ordered all federal workers to return to the office.”

• “We’ve ended weaponized government.”

• “I’ve stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America.”

• “I signed an order making English the official language of the United States of America.”

• “I renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. And likewise, I renamed, for a great president, William McKinley, Mount McKinley again.”

• “We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion policies all across the entire federal government.”

• “We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools.”

• “I signed an order making it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female. I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports.”

• “A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy. … We are opening up many of those power plants right now.”

• “My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska.”

• “I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.”

• “I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.” He went on at length about much of the appalling waste and fraud uncovered by DOGE, mocking such foolishness as he went.

• “We have developed in great detail what we are calling the Gold Card” for immigration.

• “I officially designated [the Venezuelan prison gang, the toughest gang known as Tren de Aragua], along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty Mexican drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations.”

• “My administration has acted swiftly and decisively to restore fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law, starting at the FBI and the DOJ.”

• “I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the sexual mutilation of our youth.”

• “The U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years.”

• “In the Middle East, we’re bringing back our hostages from Gaza.”

There are also many things he still pledges to do, from budget to swamp-draining to tax cuts.

• “In the near future, I want to do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget.”

• “My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again. … We are draining the swamp.”

• “The next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody. … I’m calling for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security benefits for our great seniors.”

• “I also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible — but only if the car is made in America.”

• “Whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them.”

• “Thanks to our America First policies we are putting into place, we have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in America in just the past few weeks.”

• “I have already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer, and tonight, I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law. I am also asking for a new crime bill, getting tough on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers.”

• “Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong.”

• “I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.”

• “I am asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art golden dome missile defense shield to protect our homeland.”

• “We are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding. And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the White House that offers special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America where it belongs.”

• “My administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it. Just today a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal.”

• “We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it.”

• “I’m also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine.”

I’ll close with his best line of the night, which came regarding the core issue of immigration:

Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history, and we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of illegal border crossers ever recorded. Thank you. The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying, “We needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border.” But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.

Mic drop.

Unlike the division fostered by Joe Biden and the jeering Democrats, most Americans support Trump’s policies. With few exceptions, he champions popular commonsense policies. The public reaction to last night’s address was also largely positive. For good reason.

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.