President Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, at 82 minutes in length, was the longest such speech since President Bill Clinton’s 89-minute one in 2000 and the third-longest ever.
The near-record speech narrowly eclipsed last year’s performance, which clocked in at over an hour and 20 minutes and had been the longest since Clinton’s time.
The length of State of the Union addresses has crept up in recent years as presidents have felt compelled to touch on more topics and include call-outs to a wider variety of constituent groups.
Neither Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or George H.W. Bush had a single State of the Union that went over an hour. Bill Clinton bucked the trend, giving both the longest and second-longest State of the Union addresses on record.
Both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama continued the trend of longer speeches. Bush’s addresses averaged over 50 minutes, while the majority of Obama’s addresses were over an hour long. Before Clinton, the average State of the Union address was just over 40 minutes.
Trump’s speech, a pitch for Democrats and Republicans to “choose greatness,” touched on a range of issues, including, notably, immigration, the economy, foreign policy, and abortion. The prepared text totaled about 5,250 words, far short of the record 9,190 words in Clinton’s 1995 address.
The speech as delivered was also extended by Trump taking time to introduce and honor special guests in attendance, such as World War II veteran and Dachau liberator Herman Zeitchik. At times Trump ad-libbed in reaction to the mood in the chamber, or milked applause lines.
At one point, he allowed Democratic women extra time to celebrate on the House floor as he mentioned the gains women made in Congress in the midterm elections. At another, he paused as the assembled members of Congress sang “happy birthday” to Judah Samet, a survivor of the Holocaust and last year’s Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh.
