The State of the Union Is Less Than Ideal

For some reason, the Trump Team Didn’t Use My Speech

During the first Trump term, I was regularly asked the following two questions. First, as a junior speechwriter for President Obama, did I ever write a State of the Union Address. Second, would I ever consider writing speeches for Donald Trump.

Until now, the answer to both these questions was “No,” but since bending the knee seems to be all the rage these days, I took a crack at writing a draft of last night’s big speech. Unfortunately, the Trump team went in a different direction. Probably they wanted it to be the longest address in history. Which it was. Here was my original proposal.

My fellow Americans, I stand before you today as a convicted felon, a man who’s been found legally liable for sexual assault, a former commander-in-chief who was impeached twice, tried to overturn an election, incited a mob to storm the Capitol, and also, somehow, your president. So right off the bat, that’s not terrific.

Forty-two days, nine hours, three minutes, and two million years into my second term, we can all agree I’ve done lots of stuff. Great stuff? Maybe not. Good stuff? Let’s not get greedy. But stuff. So much stuff.

Which is why today, I can stand before you and say with the greatest confidence that the State of our Union is meh at best.

From day one, I’ve put a ketamine-addled gajillionaire who wields a large toy chainsaw (when he’s not doing Nazi salutes) in charge of destroying our government. Which, now that I say it out loud, sounds like a bad idea.

With the help of my deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who I’m proud to say was cast as a vampire in Nosferatu even though he never auditioned, Elon has deployed a team to root out waste, fraud, and corruption, as defined by people even your typical internet troll find distasteful. My critics say the DOGE engineers are too young to be making big decisions, but the way I see it, if you’re old enough to rent a car in five years, you’re old enough to cut off lifesaving aid to hundreds of thousands of starving children.

Okay, that one doesn’t sound so great out loud either.

But don’t worry. There’s lots of good stuff to brag about. For example, right now there’s a measles outbreak in Texas. You should all be very grateful I put RFK Jr. in charge of public health, because no one has more experience with measles outbreaks than he does. Would it be nice if his experience involving curbing those outbreaks instead of making them worse? Probably. But as the Rolling Stones so famously sang, “You can’t always get the lack of measles outbreaks you want.”

Meanwhile, I’ve fulfilled my promise to go after the deep state. During the campaign, I railed about how I was going to fire the people who kept me from doing all the things I want. Then I got elected and I fired, among others, the people who keep the nuclear weapons from exploding. You could use basic logic to infer that this means I want that, or you could not think too hard about it. I recommend the latter.

Speaking of firings, I dismissed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and everyone’s hoping that the reason I picked Dan “Razin’” Caine to replace him was that I like his nickname. Because given the circumstances, I-think-the-nickname-is-cool-and-not-anything-more-sinister is the least worrisome possibility out there.

And in case you were wondering, the hits are gonna keep coming. Just yesterday Wired reported that CEOs can pay five million dollars for a one-on-one dinner with me. What would you say if you saw this happening in another country? (Until recently, you’d probably have said, “I’m glad I live in America and not that other country,” but you get my point.)

Okay, let’s turn to foreign policy. Remember Russia? The bad guy from the good James Bond movies. We’re friends with them now! [Hold for reluctant standing ovation from half the room.] Already, my approach to Putin is a win-win situation, by which I mean he’s constantly winning. [Hold for Mike and JD to laugh.] A cynic might ask if I’m just rewarding a dictator for interfering in elections on my behalf. To which I’d reply, “Have the cynics ever been right when it comes to Donald J. Trump?” And then I would change the subject to something else, like birds.

What is a bird? Does anyone know?

Meanwhile, when I’m not pining after Putin, I’m selling out Ukraine or having my vice president insult our European allies. [High five; no eye contact.] And sure, it’s not always pleasant watching a handful of creeps betray the bedrock values America has always stood for. But on the plus side, we all get to watch Marco Rubio humiliate himself daily—and in this divided country, that’s one thing every American can enjoy.

Oh, also I’m tanking the economy to beat up on Canada for no discernible reason. Which reminds me, I’m renaming the Gulf of Canada to The Gulf of Not Canada. Isn’t this fun?

But tonight isn’t about the recent past. It’s about future. Specifically, my ominous social media postings about becoming a king and ignoring court orders. It’s a classic will-they-won’t-they situation, like Ross and Rachel if the American people were Ross and Rachel wanting to rule America with an iron fist.

I know how much you’d love me to keep going, but you know what they say, white nationalist sympathizers don’t appoint themselves. And don't worry, you’ll get three more of these, unless Elon decides to take them from now on. But before I go, let me leave you with one final, timeless thought about the country we all love and/or are excited to loot.

Uh-oh.

---

David Litt wrote speeches for President Obama between 2011-2016. A New York Times bestselling author, his newest book, It’s Only Drowning, will be published by Simon & Schuster in June. He also posts under @davidlitt on Instagram and BlueSky, writes the newsletter “Word Salad,” and was born with an innate talent for cooking shrimp.