The millions of Americans tuning in for the State of the Union may want to settle in for a long night, if prediction markets are any guide.
Bettors on Polymarket and Kalshi are overwhelmingly forecasting that President Donald Trump’s address Tuesday will stretch beyond an hour. More than 50 percent of Polymarket users believe the president will speak for more than 100 minutes, while 66 percent on Kalshi believe it will last more than 110 minutes.
While Trump hasn’t revealed the exact length of the speech, he did tell reporters point-blank, “It’s going to be a long speech because we have so much to talk about.”
Trump’s 2018 State of the Union clocked in at just over 80 minutes, already on the long side by modern standards. But he’s only gotten more long-winded with time: His March 4, 2025 address to a joint session of Congress ran nearly 100 minutes—making it the longest such speech in modern U.S. history.
An insider with knowledge of the speech told Politico, “It’s an offensive speech, but the backdrop of it all is that they’ve been in a defensive posture for several weeks now.”
The address comes as the president’s agenda is losing altitude. Trump is now underwater with a 60 percent disapproval rating—and even on his signature issues, voters are souring, with net disapproval of 18 points on immigration and 30 points on tariffs.
Trump is all but confirmed to have a bone to pick during his speech about his titular economic policy. His tariffs were struck down as unconstitutional by a Supreme Court that is usually on his side, a decision which he is currently attempting to sidestep.
Trump is also likely to hit a grab bag of hot-button issues that have defined the first half of his presidency, from his invasion of Venezuela and proposed takeover of Greenland to the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good by ICE agents.
Reassuring Americans about the economy is likely to be the speech’s main focus–despite the president’s weak standing on the issue with a net disapproval of 16 points on the economy and a whopping 33 points on inflation.
“I expect the president and his team know that this speech presents a moment of opportunity to really address the affordability angle,” Kevin Madden, a GOP communications strategist in Washington, D.C., told The Beast.
Madden added that it won’t be easy for the embattled commander-in-chief.
“Last year was all about promise and potential. This year has to be about the current reality.”
The president will likely double down on the narrative that his administration inherited a poor economy from former President Biden. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “The president’s going to make the case that three more years with him in the White House and with Republicans on Capitol Hill, we can finally achieve the American dream in this country again that we had in his first term, but was lost because of Joe Biden and the Democrats over the past four years.”
Ross Worthington, the White House director of speechwriting, spearheaded drafting the State of the Union speech. He received assistance from Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Steven Miller, Comms Director Steven Cheung, and Leavitt.
Meanwhile, the Democrats plan to bring a number of faces that could elicit a reaction from a president who is known to often go off script, including the family members of the late Virginia Giuffre, a victim of Jeffrey Epstein. Up to 12 other Epstein victims are set to appear as well.
Their presence comes as Trump’s Justice Department faces mounting backlash over its handling of the Epstein files, including criticism that it has slow-walked file dumps and failed to fully release records tied to the late financier’s network.
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