President Donald Trump has now set a new benchmark for the longest State of the Union address in American history.
WASHINGTON — On Tuesday night, President Trump delivered what is now the lengthiest State of the Union speech ever recorded in the United States.
Known for his extensive speeches, Trump had hinted to reporters beforehand that his address would be lengthy, stating, “We have a lot to cover, so it will be a long speech.”
The president spoke for approximately 1 hour and 48 minutes.
Just last year, he had already surpassed the previous record for the longest speech to a joint session of Congress on March 4, 2025, by a significant margin.
In that address, Trump spoke for nearly 1 hour and 40 minutes, surpassing the earlier record held by President Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union speech, which lasted 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 49 seconds.
That’s according to the American Presidency Project at the University of California at Santa Barbara, which has tracked speech length since President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964.
Trump’s speech in 2025 was not technically a State of the Union since he only took office about six weeks before making it. But his lengthy address is nonetheless the longest offered to a joint session of Congress and broke Clinton’s record by nearly 11 minutes.
If you’re only counting the presidential speeches that weren’t officially a “State of the Union,” Trump’s was the longest by 34 minutes.
During Trump’s three State of the Union addresses, he had already come close to breaking the time record.
What were the longest State of the Union addresses?
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 2-3, 6, and 8, while Trump holds 1, 4-5 and 7.
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.
- Donald Trump (2026) Around 1 hour, 48 minutes
- Bill Clinton (2000) 1:28:49
- Bill Clinton (1995) 1:24:58
- Donald Trump (2019) 1:22:25
- Donald Trump (2018) 1:20:32
- Bill Clinton (1999) 1:18:40
- Donald Trump (2020) 1:18:04
- Bill Clinton (1998) 1:16:43
- Joe Biden (2023) 1:13:00
- Lyndon B. Johnson (1967) 1:11:16
- Barack Obama (2010) 1:09:20
