David Schultz, professor of political science at Hamline University, visiting lecturer at Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) and member of the MRU LAB Justice Research Laboratory.

It was a ticking off supposed accomplishments of his in his first 44 days of his second term, as well as a statement of grievances against everyone who opposed him, including immigrants, Canada, Mexico, the European Union, and China. It was an entirely predictable speech. It was exactly what Donald Trump wanted.

Donald Trump is a showman craving attention, and he got it in his speech before Congress. He had a captivated, or rather captured, audience of members of Congress. He had the American public watching, and people from across the world for one hour and 45 minutes, the longest speech ever by a President of the United States to Congress.

He put on a show. He admitted people to the US Military Academy. He made a 10-year-old federal agent, and he used staged audience members as props for his political messaging. It was a speech aimed at his political base. There was no effort to reach out to Democrats or persons or people who opposed him internally. Instead, he dueled with them, taunted them. It was also a speech that failed to reach internationally. It was marked by something highly unusual, significant criticism of Joe Biden and his predecessors, something that rarely a sitting president does regarding previous presidents.

It was also a speech full of falsehoods. His arguments about so many aging people collecting Social Security have clearly been refuted. His argument that the United States had given Ukraine hundreds of billions of dollars in aid, also has been refuted. But the facts do not matter to his supporters. He was showing the world how tough the United States was to his opponents; it was a way to give them anxiety or a source of grievance.

Trump as a candidate ran on the economy, arguing that he would do what he could to bring prices down. In fact, he promised. But instead, the price of eggs continues to go up in the United States. The tariffs that he wants to impose will do nothing to help the economy, and already we see signs that his policies will fuel inflation and cause jitters in the financial stock markets.

From a foreign policy perspective, we did not learn too much that was new. Tariffs will be used to bully both foes and friends alike. He threatened Denmark by saying the United States would get Greenland one way or the other, and he threatened Panama by saying, we will get the canal back. But there were some who were anticipating to hear something about Ukraine, the outline of a peace plan, but there was nothing. There was every indication that Trump’s America would pull out of more international agreements, and little assurance that the US would be there for Lithuania.

It was a speech devoid of specifics in detail. It avoided the tough questions that needed to be addressed, and after an hour and 45 minutes, it left America as divided as ever. It also left allies wondering where the United States was and will be in terms of the alliances that we had built with them for the last 80 years.