“The deliberate cruelty that they found humor in stood out to me,” says Jordan Uhl of Donald Trump’s Tuesday evening State of the Union. This week on the Intercept Briefing, co-hosts Uhl, Akela Lacy, and Jessica Washington disentangle Trump’s nearly two-hour-long speech so you don’t have to. 

“This is who these people are. In some ways, they're trying to sugarcoat what they're doing, but in other ways they're so blatant about doing really evil things around the world and being totally OK with it,” says Lacy, in reference to Trump talking about kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “It is really alarming to me how good they are at framing that in a positive light. And there were people cheering all over the room for us toppling a regime, doing regime change, while they're telling you that we don't do that anymore.” 

Washington adds, “The whole thing, if you read it, if you listen to it, it reads like a white nationalist speech.”

The co-hosts also dissect the Democratic Party's official response to the State of the Union, delivered by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger.

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. 

Keep our investigations free and fearless at theintercept.com/join. 

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