President Obama seemed to admit that his State of the Union (SOTU) speech ran too long, as he acknowledged to House Democrats that they “had to suffer through” the event, before recapping the State of the Union in 40 minutes less time than the original.

“You already had to suffer through a relatively long speech from me this week, so I’m not going to speak too long,” Obama said at the House Democratic Retreat today. “What I wanted to do, first of all, was just say thank you [for your public service].”