Vice President JD Vance and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson shared a lighthearted moment before Donald Trump’s first joint session of Congress.
On March 4, President Donald Trump addressed Congress for the first time since assuming office as the 47th President of the United States. While Vance and Trump had recently presented a united front during their tense exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, that didn’t stop Vance from making a candid remark ahead of Trump’s speech.
A clip from the session captures Vice President Vance greeting House Speaker Mike Johnson. Johnson jokes that the two “didn’t wear the same tie,” to which Vance responds, “We could have coordinated, I guess, but…”
Vance then leans in and whispers something to Johnson, which is not fully picked up by the microphone. Pulling away, he remarks, “By the way, I think the speech is going to be great. But I don’t know how you do this for 90 minutes.”
Midway through their exchange, Johnson lowers the microphone in front of them and quips, “The hardest thing was doing it during Biden when his speech was a stupid campaign speech.”
In the end, Trump’s address far exceeded the anticipated 90 minutes, becoming the longest joint session speech in at least 60 years.
According to the American Presidency Project, Trump outpaced many of his predecessors by a significant margin. While past presidents such as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan typically kept their speeches in the mid-forty-minute range, Bill Clinton’s 2000 State of the Union address lasted 88 minutes and 49 seconds. Even Trump’s own 2019 address, which clocked in at 82 minutes and 25 seconds, was outdone by his latest speech.
Despite Johnson’s jab at Biden, the former president’s longest speech was just 67 minutes and 17 seconds—considerably shorter than Trump’s address, which lasted an impressive 99 minutes and 32 seconds.
One Twitter user speculated about Vance’s whispered remark, suggesting, “I think Vance just said in his ear, ‘This is going to be the longest speech ever.’”
Trump wasn’t speaking continuously for the entire 99 minutes and 32 seconds, as the duration was extended by applause breaks and occasional interruptions, including a heckler in the audience.
