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We know the speech took place last week, but rather than putting out a quick reaction, we wanted to take our time, rewatch the speech, and give you our thoughts.

President Trump addressed a joint session of Congress Tuesday evening, February 28. In stark contrast with the melancholy tone of his inaugural speech and its call to arms, this address was much lighter and hopeful. He dwelled less on the depiction of a nation in crisis and, instead, pointed to his executive actions as indicators of progress.

The media has recently criticized Trump relentlessly as being anti-Semitic and racist towards Blacks. A BuzzFeed report, accessible to many via Facebook, popularized Trump’s alleged statements to state attorneys general about the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and threats against Jewish community centers: “Sometimes it’s the reverse, to make people—or to make others—look bad.” This was taken as an implication that Trump considered some of the threats and acts of vandalism to have been carried out by Jews themselves to exacerbate the perceived persecution of Jews since Trump’s election.

Trump, however, began his speech with a respectful acknowledgement of Black History month. He also said, “Recent threats targeting Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries, as well as last week’s shooting in Kansas City, remind us that while we may be a nation divided on policies, we are a country that stands united in condemning hate and evil in all of its very ugly forms.”

Trump quickly segued to addressing the economic concerns of the American people, starting with America watching its “middle class shrink as we have exported our jobs and wealth to foreign countries.” In 2015, the Pew Research Center released the information that President Trump is citing, specifically stating that middle-income Americans (i.e. those between two-thirds of the median income and double the median) gradually declined 11% over the span of 44 years from 1971 to 2015. There has also been a steady, sharper decline in manufacturing jobs, which Trump referenced.

Most manufacturing jobs have not necessarily been exported so much as replaced by automation. America’s manufacturing output is at an all-time high in terms of production, but due to technological progress, manufacturers are producing more with fewer human beings, relying on machines and computers according to Binyamin Appelbaum of The New York Times. Regardless, the end result is the same, and as Trump points out, the middle class is smaller than it was four decades ago.