Trump makes history with the longest speech to Congress

WASHINGTON — Trump has set a record for the longest address to a joint session of Congress. And it wasn’t even close.

He spoke for more than 1 hour and 40 minutes, surpassing the record set by President Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address, which lasted 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 49 seconds.

According to the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, which has been monitoring speech lengths since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.

Although Trump’s speech is not officially a State of the Union address since he has only been in office for about six weeks, it still ranks as the longest speech delivered to a joint session of Congress.

During Trump’s three State of the Union addresses, he came close to breaking the time record. 

His 2019 address lasted one hour, 22 minutes and 25 seconds, which is the third-longest spoken State of the Union speech in history. Trump’s first State of the Union in 2018 lasted 80 minutes and his final one in 2020 was around 78 minutes. 

However, his first address to a joint session of Congress in 2017 was about 20 minutes shorter and took just over one hour. 

Here are some comparisons from 1964 onwards by The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Bill Clinton holds the title for the longest spoken State of the Union speech on record — his 2000 address took one hour, 28 minutes and 49 seconds. 

While George W. Bush and Barack Obama kept their State of the Union addresses to about 50 minutes and one hour, respectively, Trump came close to the record. 

In fact, Clinton and Trump hold the top seven spots for longest modern State of the Union addresses. Clinton holds spots 1-2, 5, and 7, while Trump holds 3-4 and 6. 

A different former president holds the record for longest written State of the Union address: Jimmy Carter with 33,667 words in 1981. Carter, whose spoken State of the Union addresses averaged about 37 minutes and 3,750 words, opted for a written-only version that year instead of the televised primetime address that had become standard. 

1. Bill Clinton (2000) 1:28:49
2. Bill Clinton (1995) 1:24:58
3. Donald Trump (2019) 1:22:25
4. Donald Trump (2018) 1:20:32
5. Bill Clinton (1999) 1:18:40
6. Donald Trump (2020) 1:18:04
7. Bill Clinton (1998) 1:16:43
8. Joe Biden (2023) 1:13:00
9. Lyndon B. Johnson (1967) 1:11:16
10. Barack Obama (2010) 1:09:20

In minutes, Richard Nixon’s 1972 speech is the shortest spoken State of the Union address on record with The American Presidency Project — 28 minutes, 55 seconds.