The columnist David Brooks joins Times Opinion’s deputy editor, Patrick Healy, to take stock of President Trump’s fifth address to Congress, to analyze the Democrats’ response and to discuss where Americans who care about moral leadership should put their energy today.

Below is a transcript of an episode of “The Opinions.” We recommend listening to it in its original form for the full effect. You can do so using the player above or on the NYT Audio app, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.

Patrick Healy: I’m Patrick Healy, deputy editor of New York Times Opinion, and this is the First 100 Days, a weekly series examining President Trump’s use of power and his drive to change America.

Audio clip of Trump: “Speaker Johnson, Vice President Vance …”

On Tuesday night in his speech to Congress, Trump spun a narrative about a powerful America that I think a lot of Americans are really going to like.

Audio clip of Trump: “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president.”

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