Now, on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor & Company. It's 5.07. Good morning. Thanks for tuning in to O'Connor & Company on this Wednesday day after State of the Union. We've got a full breakdown on it. I'm guessing there were only two, three, four, maybe five people who were up last night for the State of the Union. watched the whole thing and are now listening as we speak. And, well, Kerry Lucas and I are two of those people. Heather Hunter, our producer, is the third one. We'll see who else. But we're glad to be here to give you the breakdown on everything that happened last night in the House chamber. Also at 635, Kel Thomas will join us to talk about it. At 7.05, Virginia Senator Bryce Reeves will talk about Abiel Spamberger's sort of milquetoast, sad, dour response. 8.05 will speak with Chairman of the Judiciary Committee Jim Jordan, who is in the chamber. And then at 8.35, Nick Freitas, podcaster and former delegate in Virginia, will also talk about what's going on in the state. Good morning, Carrie Lucas, President of the Independent Women's Forum. It's good to have you here. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Well, of course. And it's always great to have you on a day that Julie Gunlock should be here because she is still on the road to recovery and making great strides. And we anticipate her back. Well, it won't be soon enough, but we anticipate her coming back. But since you're her bestie, it's great to have you here because it will make me think of Julie even more than I usually do every morning. Absolutely. Yep, we miss her on mornings like this. She'd have a lot to say after that spectacle last night. Oh, yes. She would absolutely be beautiful and wonderful and epic. And if you would like to get updates on Julie's recovery, and if you would like to also just do whatever you can to help out the family, go to GiveSendGo.com slash Julie Gunlock. GiveSendGo.com slash Julie Gunlock. You don't have to donate anything. Wonderful if you do. But you can become a prayer warrior, too. Just sign up. Let the Gunlock family know that you are praying for Julie and for the family. And then you will get updates there from that page as well. Thank you for that. But yes, last night was the longest State of the Union address in history. And I was up for every – did you stay up for the whole thing? I sure did. Yeah. Yeah. And here we are. So we both got about four and a half hours by my count, maybe four – maybe four and a half at the most. Four hours sleep probably because it did. It ended just at 11 o'clock. And it was – well, it was classic Trump. It really was. And he spent a lot of time, and I'm glad he did this, that there were two main thrusts of the speech. Most state of the unions or what we've become accustomed to is a president going up there and asking for a laundry list of bills and amendments and laws and a whole bunch of policies that aren't going to happen anyway. But, you know, it sort of checks all the boxes of all of the special interests that he has to appeal to. And that ends up taking a ton of time. Trump did not spend a whole lot of time on that. There are a couple of legislative items that he asked Congress to get on board with, but not really. Most of it was this is how bad things were when I started a year ago, and here's how we've put it in the right direction. But there's more work to do. And now let me show you very real human examples of what makes this country great and the kinds of things we've been able to accomplish. I've got real individual Americans here from all walks of life. And then he spent a huge amount of time telling their stories and acknowledging those people in the gallery. And it was a very effective way to tell his story. Yeah. You know, Larry, I think that it's interesting when you see a State of the Union, you usually think of it as a really a show put on by the president. And when this president puts on a show, it's really compelling. And you get you you it's a moment where you instead of reading on X kind of a cartoonish version or a really short clip of what the president has said or done. You get a sense of the man again. And he's funny. He likes people. He obviously loved all to get to tell all the stories of the folks who were in out there in the audience. And that's really what I thought came across was this kind of just like love of America, love of the people and love of the people, especially who serve our country. Yeah. Yeah. Well said. And, you know, everyone was anticipating certain moments like will he call out the Supreme Court for striking down the tariffs in their decision earlier last week? And he did. But it was very soft. All he did was just say a real unfortunate decision. He said it like three times. There was an unfortunate decision, but then broke news by saying, you know, we've talked to almost all of our international trade partners and they know that I have other tools in my toolbox where I can, you know, relevy new tariffs if I have to. And our international trading partners, rather than having to go back and renegotiate the deals we already have, they've just decided they don't care. They're going to stick with the deal we've got right now. So that was a huge, huge way to turn that story around and basically say, yeah, OK, the Supreme Court said I can't do the tariffs the way I did them. I can do them other ways. But, you know what, we don't really need to because we've already got our deals in place. I thought that was politically brilliant. Yeah, absolutely. I was frankly relieved that there wasn't, you know, because obviously we want – you know, the president obviously was really upset about that in the moments afterwards. and, you know, regardless of the merits of that case, you always hate to have that kind of feeling of conflict between two branches of government and instead he really did take the high road, which was, I think, wonderful both politically but then also kind of for the good of the country. And for all of the, you know, obviously, I don't want to say, it's probably an overstatement to say that this wasn't a partisan speech because certainly there were a lot of partisan moments. Sure. But that was but that really wasn't the vibe, you know, at the end of it, that it wasn't there was some Republican versus Democrats. But you knew that the president was on the side of America and the good guys in a way that was, I think, very powerful and smart. Really great observation, Kerry Lucas, because, yes, it was partisan. But here's the thing. When you draw attention to the American people of the partisan divide on certain issues, you actually end up unifying our country. Hear me out. There's a huge number of issues right now that Democrats and Republicans in Congress are fighting about where the American people, by the tune of 80 percent to 20 percent, agree with. They agree with the Republicans. So, yeah, you're partisan by pointing out that the Democrats are holding things up because they're on the 20 side of an 80-20 issue. But by pointing that out, you're actually unifying the 80 percent of our nation. And for everyone who says, oh, why can't Congress get together and agree on them? Well, there used to be certain things we could all agree on. I feel like this president went out of his way to demonstrate some of those things that we do, in fact, agree on and come together on. Like awarding two medals of honor to American military heroes, one 100 years old from the Korean War and one just from our latest conflict in Venezuela. Like awarding two Purple Hearts to the, well, posthumously for one and to the other, the wounded National Guardsmen who were shot and attacked by an Afghan terrorist who was in the country under Joe Biden's asylum laws. These are unifying moments. Of course the USA men hockey team who made their entrance right in the press pool which was so brilliant because all the reporters just sat there like jerks because they had to be so nonpartisan that they couldn even applaud our U hockey team There were unifying moments But the fact is even on those unifying moments the Democrats at least in that chamber couldn bring themselves to participate And there was one moment in particular that stands out above the rest. I'm going to play it for you in a moment. It's a preview because you're going to see it, if Republicans are smart, in a whole lot of campaign ads between now and the midterm elections. We'll play that moment in just one second, well, 60 seconds, because first it's 5.15. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making billions pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. 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And then, you know, someone can put their hand up, but maybe it's a little more complicated than that, right? Exactly. Do you think climate change is a problem? Well, I reject the premise of the question. It's not a show of hands thing. All right. Well, last night, after watching the pattern of behavior from Democrats not standing for some fundamental things that, you know, any human being would stand for and acknowledge is a good thing or acknowledge a victim of a crime who the president is pointing out. But because the perpetrator of that crime was in the country illegally. Well, we can't we can't honor that victim now for some stupid reason. After seeing that pattern of behavior, the president, well, asked for a show of hands. But in this case, he asked people to stand up. Stand up if you agree with one simple notion. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. Now, the applause sustained for over a minute there, and I'm told the audio was a little soft. So he said, stand up if you agree with the statement. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. And the only people who stood up, it appeared to me, were the people on the right side of the chamber in every possible way, the Republicans. Democrats refuse to stand for that notion that their first duty is to protect citizens and not illegal aliens. You know, Larry, this is one that's just amazing because I feel like over the last year, Democrats have recognized that they got their clocks cleaned in 2024 on this issue. And you'll hear now kind of regularly that they say, oh, of course, immigration reform is important and we need a border, you know, blah, blah, blah. playing at least lip service to this idea that they've always been on the side of immigration reform, despite what happened during Joe Biden. But man, you can see in this moment that they still sit on their hands and don't know how to react. Yeah, to something like this. They didn't know what to do. That's the key, that it wasn't instinctive. Exactly. Outside of those scripted moments when they can give a platitude that kind of gives a nod to law and order, They still have this instinct that they want to be on the side of open borders and lawlessness, really reminding people what what happened in for like for four years under Joe Biden and what we would be in for if they as soon as they return to power. What one wonders, I mean, what were they afraid of? Did they did they fear some retribution from a deep pocketed donor or political action committee or interest group or maybe constituencies back in their district if they didn't stand and affirm that their first duty is to protect American citizens instead of illegal aliens? Or was it not fear of some retribution, but because it was inherent to their political DNA that they just refused to agree with that notion? I don't know which is worse, by the way. Either way, it's bad. It's bad. I've got the audio a little better here. Cut one. Let's go ahead and listen to it just so everybody heard it properly. So tonight I'm inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support. The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens. There you go. There it is. And they couldn't do it. It's just a brilliant, brilliant thing to do. and they couldn't help themselves but to walk into that trap. And to say, well, they trapped us. That shouldn't be a trap. That's not a trap. Yeah, this one shouldn't have been hard. They should have been able to, I mean, my goodness, the first duty, to say that that should be a no-brainer, that your first duty is to the American people is just really mind-boggling. Then there's a little bit more on the open borders and what he inherited and his ability to shut them down. and the chaos that came in those open borders. Here's some more. And he directed many of his comments directly to the Democrats in that chamber. And let's just be clear. Oh, well, that's partisan. Well, in that chamber, when you address the leadership and elected officials who were in that chamber, who literally stopped legislation and allowed horrible things like open borders to happen. OK, sure. But he's not talking about all Democrats in this country. He's talking about those people in that room. Take a listen. Cut to. Under Biden and his corrupt partners in Congress and beyond, it reached a breaking point with the Green News scam, open borders for everyone. They poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions. There were murderers, 11,888 murderers. They came into our country. You allowed that to happen. and record-setting inflation that cost the typical family $34,000 in just a speck of time. Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability, a word they just used it. Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure. You caused that problem. You caused it. You allowed it to happen. You did it. It's very, very powerful for him to turn that way. And again unlike Democrat leaders like Biden or Kamala Harris or Barack Obama he doesn go after you or me for voting the way we vote We just citizens who decide to voice our they attack us Trump goes after the elected officials. He goes after the leaders because he knows better. He knows that they're not actually representing the people. Even the people who vote Democrat, they're not truly representing their interests. I mean, this is a perfect just fact check because I do think one of the things that's been lost over this last year is, you know, the American people have kind of forgotten about how bad it was under Biden, how just what the open border meant for us. And then what inflation like the trajectory we were on. So, yeah, it's not perfect. Not all of our problems are solved one year into the Trump administration. But he should. I feel like this is just to go ahead and remind people what happened under the four years of democratic rule. All right. We've got more reflections on last night's State of the Union, including, you know, listen, for the first hour, Democrats had a strategy, you know, silent resistance. Just don't say anything. Don't do anything. But they couldn't help themselves. And then they started screaming. And Ilhan Omar was the loudest of them all screaming back at the president. So what did the president say that triggered Ilhan Omar so much that she became the screaming, unhinged face of the Democrats last night? Well, we will tell you what he said. We'll play it for you. Coming up in a few moments. It's 524. Now on 105.9 FM and streaming worldwide on the WMAL app, O'Connor and Company. What a night in your nation's capital historic speech by, well, many measures. And we're giving you the rundown this morning on the State of the Union delivered by President Donald Trump to a joint session of Congress. Also coming up at 635, Cal Thomas, indicated columnist. He's seen his share of these speeches. We'll get his reaction. 705, Virginia Senator Bryce Reeves, who's being punished by Democrats in Richmond right now because, well, he's a Republican. He will give us his impression of Abigail Spanberger's response. 805 brings us Congressman Jim Jordan, who was in the chamber last night. And then at 835, Nick Freitas, now a podcaster, former Virginia delegate, get his analysis of all this stuff. It's Larry O'Connor alongside Kerry Lucas, president of Independent Women's Forum. Good morning, Kerry. Good morning. Thanks for having me. I am sad to say that there were some women legislators last night who would not consider themselves independent women. They sort of marched to the Marxist drumbeat. That's for sure. And they had the sads last night. And the strategy going in was for those who did attend, and I think the final count was over 70 Democrats boycotted and just decided not to show up. Which, listen, I understand for their base that sends the message, we will not know. This is not normal. and I will not platform him and I will not normalize it. So, you know, because they thought this was not normal and they didn't want to normalize it, they went and did an event with people dressed in inflatable frog costumes and a performing artist dressed in a giraffe furry pajamas dancing and singing about ice. Larry, we're really blessed with the other side, you know. It's really incredible, the first errors. I don't think the message sent when they don't show up and they decide to go to things like that is that they're a resistance. No, it communicates that if they don't like what's going on, they're just going to refuse to do their job. Their job is to be there and represent their district. But again, who am I to lecture them? They're members of Congress after all. But for those who did show up, the strategy, at least for the first half of the speech, which would be the first hour of the speech, was to sit in stoic and defiant silence and not give him the benefit one way or the other. Just do your duty and stay silent. Reluctantly stand for a World War II hero. But other than that, we'll just sit there stony-faced. Then, well, then things went a little off the rails. And here, take a listen to this. You'll probably be able to hear them screaming in the background. It's Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar just screaming, literally screaming back at the stage. Cut six. Here, take a listen. ...criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country. They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country. And you should be ashamed of yourself. The You Should Be Ashamed of Yourself was directed right at Yohan Omar for all of that display. So what got her so triggered? What made her break her silence? Well, a little bit before, President Trump addressed the fraud that's been going on in her district in Minneapolis-St. Paul and specifically called out those members of the Somali community, immigrants, some legal and naturalized, some not so much, and what they've been doing. And here's how it sounded. cut five. But when it comes to the corruption that is plundering, really, it's plundering America. There's been no more stunning example than Minnesota. The members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer. We have all the information. And in actuality, the number is much higher than that. And California, Massachusetts, since Maine and many other states are even worse. This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn't believe. So tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President J.D. Vance. We'll get it done. And if we're able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight. It'll go very quickly. That's the kind of money you talk about. Now, that was cut four, right? Can we get to cut five here? Because he used some more colorful language, specifically with regard to those in Minneapolis. The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception. importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA. And it is the American people who pay the price and higher medical bills, car insurance rates. So he called them Somali pirates, which I think is actually quite humorous. But he also made a larger point, which is, listen, there are a lot of other places around this planet where fraud and crime is the norm. and it's culturally acceptable or the governments are either on the take or ineffective in trying to stop it. And by importing people from those cultures without any kind of screening process, without any kind of normalization, and without enforcing the laws for when they come here and try to repeat their issues that they are bringing with them to this country, well, that's a recipe for a disaster and the downfall of our civilization. And when he said this, they cut to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. And I kid you not, you can see it for yourself, everybody. The videos are out there. She had tears in her eyes because she's weeping for the criminals. You know, some people among the Democrats may have been conflicted when President Trump said, which side are you on? Do you want to are you going to who's who does the American government owe their first allegiance to? So Ilhan Omar didn't have any qualms. We absolutely know whose side she's on, and it is certainly not for American citizens. First, that's for absolute sure. This is another one where the president really brilliantly laid out for the American people the two sides And this is really is this isn just about the you know the sad hard cases that we know This is for folks, the Democrats are on the side of open borders and allowing the rest of the world to come in and dominate the interests of the American people. That's right. That's right. So well said. And, you know, so many of them now say, well, of course, yes, we we things get the border got out of control and they went too far. And Trump did a good job shutting that. And, you know, they're acting like, yeah, sure, we can agree on that. But first of all, they didn't agree on that at the time. But secondly, they still don't agree on fixing the problem that those open borders cause. See, to them, the problem with the open border is the optics, the politics of it. You know that that was all caught on camera and used in ads against them. They don't actually see the fundamental problem that came along with all the people who were brought into this country unvetted and without any kind of regulation. All right. A little bit more on the speech. Some of the real feel-good moments, including a very stirring closing to the speech. Oh, and a very emotional moment where he paid tribute to long-serving former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. It was really a great moment where, well, he called her out for insider stock trading. It was brilliant, actually. We'll get to that too. It's 544. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Let's start with the funny part. When the president called for a new bill that would make it illegal for Congress to utilize insider trading, some Democrats stood, actually, and applauded that. But Trump couldn't see if one particular member of the Democrat caucus stood. Here's cut 51. Let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information. They stood up for that. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Did Nancy Pelosi stand up if she was here? Pass the Stop Insider J.D. Act. There you go. You know, this will be her last State of the Union, and she's not running for re-election. That's her final mention. She used to sit there behind the president in the vaulted position of the Speaker of the House. Now she's just a backbencher and openly ridiculed and mocked by the president. I don't know. I know that's kind of harsh if you think of her as a hero, but I found it kind of delightful. It was the thing that I loved is that it was the president was laughing. It wasn't it didn't come off as mean. It's more just a joke because everybody knows the truth. And let's not forget last time we thought of Nancy Pelosi during a Trump State of the Union. She was standing behind him ripping his speech up in pieces. Yeah. So don't tell me about the norms and respect and dignity and stop. All right. Incredible, unifying, bonding moments last night, including this. We knew it was going to happen. We didn't know how it would happen. Would the USA gold medal hockey team be sitting somewhere in the gallery? I thought no, because they don't let beer in there, of course. So how would it happen? Well, he announced them and they came in down the aisles wearing their sweaters and their gold medals up in the gallery. And where in the gallery? Right in the middle of the press pool where all the dour, you know, sad, gray faced journalists were sitting with their laptops. Take a listen to the moment. Cut 10. And I could actually see some of those journalists with their faces buried in their laptops going to their Blue Sky account saying, I cannot believe I am forced to endure this. The toxic patriotic masculinity is just triggering me to no end. And a lot of the journalists saying that were actually women. Yeah, it was bad, Carrie. It was really bad. You know, I think that this is one where America looks at this and thinks, you know, this is what it's all about is having another opportunity to all rally behind these awesome, you know, lovely kind of impressive, fun looking. Just everything that's great about America, you could see in the faces of those hockey players. Yes. And yes, the Democrats did. They didn't stand for the little boy with cancer last year, but they did stand for the U.S. men's hockey team. And by the way, he announced that the women's hockey team will be coming to the White House later this year. That was a big item, too, because there's a lot of speculation that the women were being woke and they were defying Trump. Not so much. Absolutely. And that was actually I think it was important because there was kind of this dust up of, oh, had the president said something kind of sexist or demeaning to women's hockey, which I feel like, you know, you don't want that to catch on. And I think it was a ridiculous. But he really put that to bed last night with making such a big deal about the women's appropriately. And I think he means it. You know, I don't think this was just a put on. He meant it. And I think it did show just that how excited he is about all of our great Olympians. Obviously, we're talking about the State of the Union all morning long, Cal Thomas and Jim Jordan, who was there. But let me leave you with this real fast. Trump often meets the moment. And he did here in the final minute of his speech in the final words. He may have rushed through it because he saw the clock and knew that it had been going long and he was ready to go, too. But take a listen. It's not bad. Cut 50. There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome. No frontier too vast for us to conquer. No dream too bold for us to chase. No horizon too distant for us to claim. for our destiny is written by the hand of providence. And these first 250 years were just the beginning from the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan, from the sun-kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields of the Dakotas, and from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., The golden age of America is upon us. The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended. It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot. And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before. Thank you. God bless you. And God bless America. And that, WMAL family, is the state of our union. It's 554. Dan Bongino returns. It's real. You better produce something fast. And he's not holding back. Dan, that's backwards. No, I'm telling you the truth. Hard truths and a bold perspective no one else can offer. You may not hear this anywhere else. I'm always under the assumption that you're being played, we're being played. Man, this show continues to expand its footprint. I love you guys for it. It's the comeback everyone's been waiting for. If there was ever a time, it is this one.
