Tonight, I’m not searching for red or blue.
I’m searching for something deeper.
A State of the Union where President Trump speaks not just with strength, but with humility. Where conviction is paired with compassion. Where disagreement does not mean disrespect.
Imagine a chamber where applause rises from both sides.
When he speaks about securing the border, there is unity around safety.
When he speaks about rebuilding American industry, there is shared commitment to workers.
When he speaks about protecting children, the entire room stands.
And imagine President Trump pausing to acknowledge Democrats where they have led with integrity. Praising bipartisan efforts. Recognizing that love of country does not belong to one party.
And imagine Democrats responding not with resistance, but with grace offering an ovation when policies align with shared American values.
No theatrics.
No tension.
No performative outrage.
Just leaders remembering they serve the same people.
For one rare hour, Americans watching at home aren’t anxious. They’re smiling. Some are shedding tears. Parents explain to their children: This is what self-government looks like.
Strength without cruelty.
Opposition without hatred.
Power without arrogance.
A reminder that patriotism is not partisan.
That would be a State of the Union worthy of the name.
And maybe just maybe, unity begins not when we agree on everything, but when we decide to honor each other anyway.
We are one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
AW
The history books quietly bypassed is that Barack Obama, during the most pressure-saturated nights of his presidency, would retreat alone to the Treaty Room on the second floor of the White House residence — not to strategize, not to take calls, but to handwrite personal letters to ten ordinary American citizens every single night, a practice he maintained with almost monastic devotion across all eight years, selecting the letters himself from the 40,000 that arrived daily at the White House, and his longtime correspondence director Fiona Reese confirmed that Obama would often weep privately while reading certain letters, folding them carefully before writing responses so personally detailed and emotionally present that recipients frequently described the experience of receiving them as the most significant moment of their lives, with one Ohio steelworker writing back to say that Obama's letter had physically stopped him from making a decision that would have permanently altered his family's future. What makes this practice almost unbearably moving is the detail that surfaced later — Obama never used a computer for these letters, always a black felt-tip pen, always legal yellow paper first as a draft, always rewritten onto White House stationery by hand a second time, because he believed, as he told historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in a rare private conversation later recounted in her 2018 work, that the physical act of pressing pen to paper forced a quality of attention that typing simply could not replicate, a philosophy rooted in his years as a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago from 1992 to 2004 where he developed the conviction that democracy only functions when its leaders remain genuinely, uncomfortably close to the specific gravity of individual human suffering rather than processing it from behind the insulating distance of institutions and screens."
Abraham Lincoln came to us 217 years ago and he’s still here. Hoping to find some hope in all the anger we’re living through these days, I’ve been rereading @DorisKGoodwin’s Team of Rivals. It’s a good reminder that our nation can survive brutally intense division.
@LASmithReports@KyTodayEditor This pastor assumes everyone who goes to a church other than his is wrong, that everyone who lives their faith differently than he does is wrong, that anyone who expresses God’s love another way than he does is wrong. Then he promises hell for anyone who doesn’t agree with him.
Dude found a lost phone and held it up until the owner came to unlock it with Face ID. Everyone holding their breath while he tries to unlock his phone. When it finally opens, crowd erupts in cheers. 🥳
Thank you everyone for your kind words. It was an honor to sing The National Anthem. I wrote the arrangement in a very specific way to honor Whitney Houston- I hope that was heard. Thank you to the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, the Sainted Choir, the Color of Noize Orchestra, Steve Hackman, and Kenny G for joining me on stage. And thank you Adam Blackstone for writing such a beautiful choir part. I love music so much.
I think we’ve seen the most consequential Super Bowl halftime show in the history of pro football. I am encouraged, and grateful to the @NFL for making it happen in the face of powerful resistance. Did I understand it? No. Did I get it? Definitely.
@Acyn 1 Thessalonians 5:3
“For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”
The word of the Lord.
Jesus literally staged a protest
IN
THE
TEMPLE.
Flipped some tables… and drove out the folks pretending to be holy.
It seems pretty clear that one of the most offensive things to God is when people use religion to cover up their greed and bigotry.
Rebuke it. In the name of Jesus.
Our Street just got a little longer. @YouTube now has the largest digital library of Sesame Street content!
For the first time ever, more than 100 full episodes of Sesame Street are available for free on YouTube. Watch everything from beloved, iconic episodes to recent season adventures across the Sesame Street and Sesame Street Classics channels.
Whether you’re an old friend or a brand-new pal, we’re so excited to welcome you to our neighborhood on YouTube.