Sarah McCammon
speaker
540 appearances
47 recordings
8 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 24 Mar
Sarah McCammon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 13 in all, peaking in Dec 2025 with 6.
Appearances
Yeah. And, you know, some of the Democrats were holding up these preprinted protest signs. They came ready with them that read Musk steals, protect veterans, save Medicaid. And then Trump responded to this big moment by speaking to Democrats directly.
So after that initial commotion, the rest of Trump's speech read kind of like a laundry list of areas where he is claiming victory so far. Some of Trump's claims, like eliminating fraudulent Social Security spending for people over the age of 150, something he's talked about before that's been debunked repeatedly.
And we should mention NPR's team of reporters fact-checked the address in real time, and we have a link to that in our show notes. You know, Asma and Sue, what else stood out to you?
OK, let's get to his speech. You know, when it comes to the economy, obviously one of Trump's big themes is tariffs. And no surprise, he talked about that tonight. What did you hear in that part of the speech?
And he kind of acknowledged that and alluded to the fact that it was tough for farmers the first time around and said, once again, it might be tough in the beginning, but I have to bear with me.
Well, another source of that uncertainty for many people is the way that Trump and Elon Musk, who has become part of his inner circle – are reshaping the federal government through Doge. Trump talked about that. He touted that as one of his accomplishments. What did you hear from Trump about what Doge has done so far?
And, you know, another big theme from Trump tonight and forever is immigration. He took up more than 10 minutes talking about that in this speech. He said his administration, quote, launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. Asma, what did you hear there?
On to another topic from the speech. That's Ukraine. Trump has been very critical of that support. And here's what he said in his speech.
We should note the most widely used tracker of Ukraine aid shows that the U.S. has provided $114 billion since the full-scale Russian invasion three years ago, and Europe has provided $132 billion collectively. And Trump said he's been talking with Ukraine and Russia to find a way to make peace.
It was the first time he'd spoken publicly about Ukraine since that meeting with President Zelensky at the White House last week, which ended in a shouting match. What struck you about his comments tonight?
But as we also talked about earlier this week on the podcast, Trump doesn't have to run free election. It's almost two years until the midterms. And he seems to be happiest playing to his base. And I think we saw During that speech, just how supportive his party was, even as, you know, the other side of the aisle was very silent. All right, it's time for a quick break.
And when we come back, the Democrats' response to the president's address.
And we're back. As is tradition with these early joint addresses or State of the Union addresses, the minority party delivers an official party response. That came from Michigan Senator Alyssa Slotkin, who had the job for Democrats this year. Sue, just tell us a little bit about Slotkin. Why was she the choice for the rebuttal?
Yeah, I mean, she was pretty laser focused on this message that Trump is essentially Trump has made all of these promises, but he's not going to be able to deliver on them, especially when it comes to improving the economy.
You know, so you mentioned earlier that she was talking about protecting democracy as a pretty simple message that tests well. You know, She ended her remarks by calling on Americans who oppose Trump to not tune out, to show up to town halls and hold their elected leaders accountable and to work on making progress on issues that they care about, even if it's just one issue, she said.
Is that a message, though, that gets voters excited at this point?
Okay, we will leave it there for now. And we will be back in your feeds Wednesday afternoon as normal. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics.
And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.
The NPR Politics Podcast · Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly · 3 Mar 2025
podcast
Eastern Time on Monday, March 3rd, 2025.
18 months is a great age, too, because you don't have to usually train them to do everything.
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