Donald Trump
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President Donald Trump held the first State of the Union Address of his second term on Tuesday night. Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress was hailed by Republicans as his best speech ever.

However, Democrats and MSNBC hosts criticized the president for making a 13-year-old cancer survivor an honorary Secret Service agent during his speech.

President Trump honored Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel during an emotional moment, announcing the boy as an honorary Secret Service agent, complete with his own Secret Service ID card.

“In 2018 DJ was diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctors gave him five months at most to live. That was more than six years ago,” Trump said, to loud applause and cheers.

“Police departments love him. And tonight, DJ, we’re going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States Secret Service.”

DJ Daniel
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GOP Congress members chanted “DJ, DJ, DJ!” as his father held him in the air. DJ then embraced Curran.

The touching moment went viral on social media. There wasn’t a dry eye on the Republican side of the room.

However, Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace slammed Trump as “disgusting” for “making a spectacle” during his speech.

“For the record, and this is disgusting, the president made a spectacle out of praising a young man who thus far survived pediatric cancer, as if the president had something to do with that,” Maddow said Tuesday evening.

“This was in the midst of him praising [the Department of Government Efficiency],” she added. “The DOGE cuts, among other things, have cut off funding for ongoing research into pediatric cancer.”

Wallace agreed, but she showed more compassion than Maddow, who gives the LGBTQ+ community a bad name.

“But I think this was a lesson in finding one thing that you let yourself feel,” Wallace told Maddow. “And I let myself feel joy about DJ, and I hope he’s alive for another, you know, 95 years and I hope he lives the life he wants to live. He wants to be a cop. He knows what he wants to do, and maybe when you have childhood cancer, that crystallizes for you.”

“I hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer,” Wallace continued. “But I hope he never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald Trump’s supporters, and if he does, I hope he isn’t one of the six who loses his life to suicide, and I hope he isn’t one who has to testify against the people who carried out acts of seditious conspiracy and then lived to see Donald Trump pardon those people.”