Trump’s speech is longest joint address to Congress in recent history

President Trump speaks during an address to a joint session of Congress at the Capitol in Washington, DC, on March 4, 2025. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday lasted for more than 90 minutes, the longest in at least 60 years. The president’s remarks surpassed former President Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address in 2000 which came in at an hour and 28 minutes, according to the American Presidency Project which tracks the lengths of each speech since 1964. Politics Read NPR’s annotated fact check of President Trump’s address to Congress Politics 6 takeaways from Trump’s pointedly partisan address to Congress Trump’s timing includes several long pauses for rounds of applause as well as a series of disruptions from Democrats in the audience. The first joint address a president delivers after being sworn in is not technically a State of the Union address, but the speeches have similar structures and both take place in the chamber of the House of Representatives. While Trump’s remarks may have the longest duration in decades, other former presidents have produced speeches with higher word counts. Sponsor Message Politics From cheers to protests, here’s a look inside the chamber during Trump’s speech Though it has become commonplace for presidential joint addresses to be televised, primetime events, historically many presidents sent in written addresses instead. The last president to submit a written address was former President Jimmy Carter in 1981. Carter’s final speech also holds the record for the address with the most words at 33,667. Preliminary numbers from the American Presidency Project estimate Trump’s speech had a total of 9,831 words — one of the highest word counts among delivered speeches.