Three Things I Wondered About From Trump's State Of The Union

​     I stayed up on Tuesday night to watch Donald Trump's longest-in-history State of the Union address. Though, as everyone else who stayed up to watch along knows, it was really less of a speech and more of a gala show, chock full of guest appearances, awards, frequent declarations of praise by Trump for himself,  

...alternating with his barbed scorn for his Democratic enemies, not to mention his fierce immigrant hatred, especially against Somalians. All of that was interspersed with heart-touching human-interest stories involving Olympic athletes, children, parents, working folks, wounded soldiers, and two centenarian veterans, most of whom appeared to be exceedingly grateful to the Presidential Master of Ceremonies, who appeared exceedingly gratified by their gratitude.
       There was just so much to take in, all of it the same old excruciatingly predictable, unchanging, perpetually self-aggrandizing Trumpian schtick that we've had playing in our ears and flashing in our eyes for the past ten and a half years. I didn't take most of it in. 
          Except for three times during the show when I found myself sitting up, taking notice, and wondering, now, what's going on here?
           The first time was when the President  began talking up the benefits of some government pharmaceutical program called Trump Rx that, according to Trump, "took prescription drugs from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest." He went on to say, "The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600 percent and more, all available right now at a new website called Trump Rx. gov." (He added that he didn't name the website, likely lest we suspect he had an oversized ego). 
            I had never heard of Trump Rx and was intrigued, so I immediately went to the TrumpRx.gov website to check it out. Here's what I found on the hype-y home page:       

      However, when I went to the "Browse Medications" page, there were only 43 drugs listed, most of them for fertility, diabetes and weight-loss. Some of the drugs were not very expensive even without the discount, 

...though most were quite expensive even with the discount.

      Apparently the way TrumpRx works is, one prints off a coupon from the website.

    One then presents the coupon to a participating pharmacy in order to receive the discounted price on one's prescription. One must pay this price out of pocket, as insurance is not accepted with TrumpRx coupons. Nor does TrumpRx cover generic options. Subsequently, the price of the drug is likely to be much cheaper if one has insurance, but TrumpRx coupons are generally meant to be used by the uninsured.
​       Ergo, mayhaps Donald Trump's State of the Union claims about TrumpRx giving Americans the lowest drug prices in the entire world was as inflated as the TrumpRx homepage?    
     The second episode that made me wonder occurred when Trump directed attention to audience member Sage Blair.

       Trump introduced Sage Blair as a young woman from Virginia who, when she was 14, school officials sought to transition from a girl to a boy without her parents' knowledge. He told of how Sage ran away from home, was sexually trafficked, then, in Trump's words, "After she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland, a left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son. Sage was thrown into an all boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time."  Trump ended by saying that today all of that was behind her because now "Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University." He then asked Sage and her paternal grandmother, Michelle, who has been Sage's legal guardian since she was two, to stand for a round of applause.

       Now, one couldn't help - at least, I couldn't help - but notice during most of Trump's tribute to Sage Blair the sadness in their face, their frequent blinking,

...the brief, inscrutable glance they exchanged with the man sitting next to them.

      I wondered what Sage Blair was thinking and feeling. Did they want to be there? Were they there of their own will? Were they trying in their mind to be somewhere or someone else? Were they in fact a "proud and wonderful young woman" for whom their terrible suffering in the past was behind them? Was the life and identity they were  now living their choice or was it being forced upon them? Were they receiving whatever mental health care they needed? And who were those two men sitting close next to them who looked like guards?
      And I mostly wondered what they meant by the little finger clap they gave while the rest of the audience was cheering for them.

        I googled "finger clapping" and learned that it signifies the expression "clock it," for which I found two meanings, this one:

...and this one:

      I wondered which meaning Sage Blair intended to communicate?    
      And finally, I wondered about Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover who during the State of the Union was presented with the Medal of Honor (Which Donald Trump kept erroneously referring to as "The Congressional Medal of Honor"), the highest award given by the United States military. CW5 Slover is an army pilot who was shot several times in the leg and hip while landing the lead helicopter during the January 3 raid of this year that led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro. Though seriously wounded, CW5 Slover landed the helicopter, enabling his crew to carry out their mission of overthrowing Maduro and taking him prisoner.
         When Trump called CW5 Slover to come forward he appeared holding on to a walker beside his smiling wife.

     However Slover looked like a prisoner of war, stone faced, his uniform cinched in at the waist and hanging loose on his frame.
       His stony, hollow-eyed, flat affect didn't change while he received his Medal of Honor,

...except for once while he was being applauded, when his face showed, for less than a second, a robotic-looking effort at a smile.

     And I wondered, what happened to that man? What is going on behind those lightless eyes?

​References
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBKYqf7emEo

https://trumprx.gov/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8G4eQyjPSM
​
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2026/02/invited-an-ex-trans-christian-student-to-the-sotu-yesterday-who-is-she/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/25/us/politics/virginia-trans-student-trump-sotu-guest.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFtxacUUmZ0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6S2xTlmGY4