For one minute and 36 seconds of Donald Trump’s address to Congress, legislators of both parties stood and applauded Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy special operator Senior Chief William Ryan Owens, who was slain in a January raid in Yemen.
“Ryan is looking down right now. You know that,” Trump said. “And he is very happy because I think he just broke a record.”
Ryan did break a record, at least as far as Trump’s speech is concerned — the ovation following Trump’s recognition of Carryn Owens was the longest of the night. The only other moments that came close to rivaling the applause she received were those following Trump’s entrance and at the conclusion of his speech.
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Altogether, Trump spoke for 59 minutes, about 17 of which included applause from standing ovations. Trump received 58 ovations in total, though the vast majority were from Republican Congress members only. A few moments did receive bipartisan applause, such as Trump’s calls to defeat ISIS, his pledge of support for police officers, and his highlighting of an African-American woman from an impoverished background who was the first in her family to graduate from college.
Aside from the moment involving Owens, many of the other major applause lines in Trump’s speech came when he doubled down on promises he made during his campaign: securing our nation (23 seconds), repealing and replacing Obamacare (22 seconds), and appointing a conservative Supreme Court nominee (22 seconds). He also received significant applause when introducing other guests he had brought to the event, such as a survivor of a rare disease (22 seconds) and the father of a man slain by an undocumented immigrant (17 seconds).
In his State of the Union addresses, President Obama averaged around 40 ovations per speech. Like Trump, most of Obama’s ovations came from members of his own party.
