When CNN anchor Jake Tapper contrasted President Trump’s blunt remarks with those of past presidents, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy didn’t hesitate. He delivered a sharp counterpunch that instantly reframed the moment.
Tapper glossed over the behavior of Democrats at Tuesday evening’s State of the Union address by suggesting that the real problem was the fact that President Donald Trump had noticed — and dared to say something about it. Speaking to Duffy after the speech, he complained that Trump effectively shattered the fourth wall when he spoke directly to the American people about the Democrats in the chamber who refused to stand for even the most basic of shared values.
WATCH:
JAKE TAPPER: “He said, ‘these people are crazy I’m telling you, they’re crazy.’ That’s not something we ever heard from Obama or Biden from that that stage.”
SEAN DUFFY: “We’ve never had a Speaker rip up a speech either”
This is why Trump likes TV guys in his cabinet. pic.twitter.com/4c2NrUvHGu
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) February 25, 2026
“He said, quote, ‘These people are crazy, I’m telling you, they’re crazy,'” Tapper said, referencing Trump’s brief departure from his remarks to call out Democrats who would not stand in support of key policies. “I mean, but that’s not something we ever heard from Obama or Biden from that stage.”
“Yeah. We’ve never had a Speaker rip up a speech either,” Duffy punched right back, referencing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s performance during the 2020 State of the Union, when she dramatically ripped up her copy as Trump concluded his remarks.
Duffy went on to argue that what Trump was saying at the time — addressing concerns about illegal aliens being given commercial driver’s licenses and putting American citizens at risk — should not have been a partisan issue.
“You have states that are issuing driver’s licenses to illegals — illegals who haven’t been trained to drive an 80,000-pound truck on an American road,” Duffy continued. “We have a little girl that has been — had her life impacted for the rest of her life — and she’s five years old, it was an illegal who hit her. I think the question becomes, why doesn’t every Democrat stand up and go, ‘No, we want well-qualified drivers on American roads.'”
“That’s not partisan,” he added. “We don’t want illegals who can’t speak the language, contrary to American law for decades, to be on American roads. I think these are easy issues, Jake, and I don’t think we saw Democrats stand up and support them.”
Duffy noted that there was one truly bipartisan moment during the speech — when the U.S. Olympic hockey team entered the chamber after winning gold for the first time in 46 years — and said that was truly “too bad.”
“If inflation is down, Democrats should applaud it. If real incomes are up, Democrats should applaud it. Those are good things that we should support as Americans,” he concluded. “Just because Donald Trump’s in office doesn’t mean you have to sit on your hands.”
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