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President Donald Trump is giving his 2019 State of the Union speech tonight, after the speech was delayed a week. The speech is scheduled to begin at 9 p.m. Eastern. But what time is it expected to end?
Typically, most State of the Union speeches last about an hour or just a few minutes over an hour. So conservative estimates have Trump’s speech ending at 10 p.m. Eastern. However, Trump is not shy about talking, and his speech last year was the third-longest in the State of the Union history. So if you’re wondering just when the SOTU speech will be over, the best estimate is sometime between 10 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Eastern.
Last year, Trump’s speech was the third-longest State of the Union in history. His speech last year clocked in at 80-minutes, second only to two of President Bill Clinton’s speeches. Trump’s no stranger to long speeches. His Republican National Convention speech was 75 minutes long (compared to Mitt Romney’s 40-minute speech in 2012 and John McCain’s 55-minute speech in 2008.)
Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress in 2017 was almost exactly 60 minutes long, starting at 9:09 p.m. Eastern and ending at 10:09 p.m. Eastern.
The longest State of the Union address on record goes to President Bill Clinton, whose 2000 address was one hour and 28 minutes long. The second-longest in history, also by Clinton, was in 1995 and lasted one hour and 24 minutes. The shortest address was Washington’s in 1790, just 833 words and about 10 minutes.
Here’s a video of Trump’s speech last year:
Here’s a video of Clinton’s State of the Union address, the longest in history:
After Trump speaks, Stacey Abrams will deliver the Democrats’ official response to the State of the Union. Abrams ran for governor in Georgia, and Democrats are hoping she’ll run for Senate next in 2020.