Trump passes Clinton, gives longest modern address to joint session of Congress

President Trump on Tuesday night gave the longest address to a joint session of Congress in modern history, surpassing former President Clinton’s previous mark.

Trump spoke for nearly 100 minutes from start to end to both houses of Congress, with a brief interruption from Rep. Al Green (D-Texas), who heckled Trump early in his speech and was escorted out by the sergeant-at-arms.

Before Trump’s address on Tuesday, Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address to Congress had the record for the longest time at more than 1 hour and 28 minutes, according to The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Trump’s speech, the first of his second term, technically was not considered a State of the Union address, as that is reserved for the speeches in the other three years of the term in which the president is able to reflect on their time in office so far.

But the president’s joint address to Congress, which every president has given shortly after taking office since Ronald Reagan in 1981, functions similarly to a State of the Union.

The project’s record-keeping goes back to the first address from Lyndon Johnson to Congress in 1964, just months after taking office following President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.

While Clinton had the longest address of any modern president until Tuesday’s speech, Trump already had the longest average speech across each time he addressed Congress during his first term. He averaged just over 1 hour and 20 minutes during that term, compared to Clinton’s 1 hour and 14 minutes in his second term.

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