Why State Of The Union “Responses” Feel Scripted And What History Says About It

A courtroom drama played out in a committee room, and we got a front‑row seat. We break down why Tennessee’s push to post the Ten Commandments in public schools is framed as restoration, not invention, and how a single Supreme Court ruling—Coach Kennedy—quietly dismantled the decades‑old Lemon test that kept faith at arm’s length in public institutions. From Moses carved into the Supreme Court frieze to McGuffey’s Readers in the classroom, we connect the historical dots most civics courses skip.

Then we pivot to the modern spectacle of the State of the Union and ask a simple question: if the rebuttals are live, why do they feel prerecorded? The answer runs through shrinking sound bites, risk‑averse scripting, and a media environment that punishes context. We dig into the surprisingly short history of formal SOTU responses, the experiments that worked (including conversational formats), and what it would take to make these moments useful again.

Finally, we explore why members of Congress split by party inside the chamber without any rule requiring it. Human nature, scarce face time, and caucus culture drive the seating map more than procedure does. Drawing on statehouse experience, we look at how mixed seating, mentorship, and daily contact can lower the temperature and raise the quality of debate.

If you care about constitutional history, religious liberty, legislative culture, and how media incentives shape public life, this is your guide to the moving pieces. Listen, share with a friend who loves policy as much as history, and leave a review so we can keep building smarter conversations together.

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the intersection of faith and culture. Thanks for joining us today on the WallBuilders program, Wallbuilders Show, WallBuilders Live we used to call it. How many names can we come up with guys? All right. It's WallBuilders, the WallBuilders Show, and then you can go to wallbuilders.com for everything else. Wall builders, but wallbuilders.show if you'd like to catch up on some of the radio programs from the last few weeks and months and today is Thursday. So, we're doing Foundations. That means you get to ask the question about any foundational question regarding the declaration, the constitution, how government works, policies, elections, you name it. Go for it. Send them in to radio@wallbuilders.com, radio@wallbuilders.com I'm Rick Green. I will simply read your question and then David and Tim Barton will have something to say about it. All right, David, Tim, y'all ready? We got quite a few questions to try to get to today. 

David Barton [00:00:49] I'm ready, I know what the first question is. So, once you ask it, I'm gonna ask you a question. So, you're gonna get engaged in this thing other than just as moderator. 

Rick Green [00:00:58] Alright, fair enough. But first, I'm gonna ask a question. Tim is out of town. Where are you, man? Tennessee? Somewhere, you're testifying on some bill somewhere, right? 

Tim Barton [00:01:06] Yeah, yesterday I testified for the Tennessee Senate on their 10th Commandment bill, and you know, guys, wouldn't you know it? The people that opposed students seeing the 10 Commandments were people that identified as people of faith, and by and large as Christian, saying that, look, I'm a Christian, I just think that it's not appropriate in an education for students to learn religious things. And ironically... yeah, one of the senators who is the loudest opposition said, I'm totally fine with the Declaration of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, because those are all political documents. But there was nothing political about the Ten Commandments. And I said, well, actually, it's the basis of the legal code. The reason Moses appears in the Supreme Court and depictions of the Ten Commandments all over the Supreme Court building, it's not because I thought he was a really good moral figure to have in the Supreme Court. It's because it was the basis of the legal code in America. All the original 13 colonies had the 10 Commandments enshrined in their legal code, et cetera, et cetera. But again, just interesting that some of the, the opposition, the most vocal and really the entirety of the opposition that was there to testify or opposed from a, a elected official position where people that identified as people of faith. But I, I do think it's going to have the votes to get out of the Senate committee. It's already passed through the house. I was able to go and just bring some original documents. Part of what we are explaining, and then I was with an attorney from First Liberty, our good buddy, Kelly Shackelford, it was somebody from his team, and they were explaining the legal landscape, why it's changed now with the overturning of the Lemon Decision, after the 2022 Coach Kennedy decision. I know that's in the weeds now for people that haven't paid attention, but the Lemon Decision is what's been used for 50 approximate years, to say that we couldn't have religious activity or expression in public areas, including in school. And the Coach Kennedy Decision of 2022 overturned that Lemon Decision. With the Lemon Decision being overturned, all of the things that we were told we couldn't do because of the Lemon Decision for like 50 years, all of those now are back on the table and this is why they're working to restore the 10 Commandments. What I was showing is the history and tradition that again, the words I used, restore the Ten Commandments is significant. The legislation is not saying for the first time ever, we want to show students in public schools in America, the Ten Commandments. What I was able to do is say, guys, from the 1600s up until 1980, the Ten Commandment were part of public education in America. And I just started showing textbooks of what happened from the first reader in 1690, the New England Primer, all the way up to Noah Webster when he did his history book in 1832. And then McGuffey's readers coming out in 1836 and 150 million sell by 1920s. And in the McGuffey's readers are the 10 Commandments. And so pointing out that this was just the basis and normal thought of education in America. It's definitely been part of our legal code, our history, our tradition, et cetera, et cetera. So it was great testifying, but I'm in the Nashville airport waiting to get on a flight. So if y'all hear some announcements, and then if I'm like, guys, I gotta go, it's because my flight's about to board, but we're trying to get this done before I get on my plane. 

Rick Green [00:04:21] Yeah, you're at a good airport. That's the place, David, where you told me we're sitting in that Tootsies or whatever the name of that one is that has music, so I don't hear any music in Tim's background, so maybe he's at another part of the airport, but we're sitting there for dinner like 10 years ago, 13 years ago and I needed to rerecord Constitutional Alive. And you said, go to Independence Hall. And I said, they'll never let me in. You said, yeah, call this guy right here. Anyway, I'll never forget that bro. Every time I fly through Nashville or fly into, into or out of Nashville, I walked by that restaurant and remember that day that was, that was too cool. Another memory while we're at it, when Tim said that the people that were testifying against the bill were these people that, you know, of faith and from whatever, I wouldn't believe that 30 years ago, I definitely believe it now, but David, I don't know if you remember this when I ran for the House the first time and I saw you somewhere in the middle of the campaign. I said, I understand, man. I got all these pastors against me. You just laughed. You're like, yeah, I know, those will be the worst ones against you. I was like, I never expected these woke, or not even at that time, we wouldn't have called them woke. They're just wimpy pastors, that didn't want me involved. 

David Barton [00:05:26] I've got an axiom that I've developed over the years on that. And it's Moses and the children of Israel and Moses only fought the Egyptians one time. He fought his own people for 30 years, 40 years, you know, so it's, it's more often to be your own tribe fighting you, than it is the opposition fighting you. In Texas we did the 10 Commandments, I mean, what we consider to be conservative evangelical denominational leaders were testifying against it in Texas as they have all over the U.S. It's just been absolutely amazing. 

Rick Green [00:05:57] And I think, Tim, you said at the end, I was already busy in my mind going down memory lane, but did you say it felt pretty good? Like you thought the committee was positive and you're hearing good things about the rest of the legislature? 

Tim Barton [00:06:09] Yeah, we, we hit, we left while they're still continuing their hearing. We, meaning me and the attorney from First Liberty.  And Senator Pode came out and met us in the hall as we were leaving and said, hey guys, this was so important, thank you. And there was another Senator that came out and said, oh my gosh, guys, this was incredible. We definitely have the votes. We're going to get it done. They were very confident. It also was fun. That some of the law enforcement personnel that was there to make sure that people aren't getting too rowdy in the state capitol in these hearing rooms, I was stopped by the law-enforcement personnel as well to say, hey, that testimony was awesome. Thank you for doing this. We need more of this. So, it was really well-received from most of, you know, I don't even know if it's most of the room because there was a couple of crazy people in that room, but for most of people who were not woke crazy, they loved it. 

Rick Green [00:07:02] We will, we'll get to some questions because, we want to make sure we get this in before Tim's flight takes off. I don't know if people realize what a big deal we are, but, here at WallBuilders, we are such a big deal that we negotiated a deal with the airlines and if they are ready to leave and we're not there, then they just go on without us. It took a lot of negotiating to get to that point, but it works that way. 

David Barton [00:07:25] That was the easiest deal we ever made in our lives too. 

Rick Green [00:07:29] That's an old Zig Ziglar joke. I borrowed it from Zig. Okay, here we go guys. First one's coming in from Nicholas. It's about State of the Union, which we just had, I guess a week or so ago. And it's about the, actually the response to the State of Union. And he said, why is the State of the Union response always prerecorded? Would it make more sense to do it live? Shortly afterwards, I think the response would be more effective regardless of party. To be honest, guys, I didn't even realize it was pre-recorded, but now that I think about it, I think you might've mentioned that last week, David. So that, so yeah. So why would they pre-record that and not have an immediate response to whatever happened in the chamber? Cause even just a written speech is not always, especially with Donald Trump. He's going to do the weave no matter what and go all over the map. Right. So, it seems like you'd want to respond to whatever happened. 

David Barton [00:08:11] Well, I'm going to issue a self-correction for me. And since you just quoted me for me and you both, it was actually a live response, but it was so scripted, that's why I thought it was pre-recorded because it was, it was so out of touch with the, what he just said and her opening statement. She contradicted exactly what he said. I thought, oh, that's pre-recorded. It was not. It was actually live. So 

Rick Green [00:08:34] She just didn't go off script. 

David Barton [00:08:36] Yeah, she did not go off script. She didn't adjust for what actually happened. So, this is fun for me because I had to, I had to ask myself some questions. Do you guys, do you remember the first time you heard a rebuttal to the State of the Union Address? How far back would that go? 

Rick Green [00:08:52] Oh, it's not that far. Cause I remember and it only sticks out to me because of everybody making fun of it for a long time, it was Marco Rubio and he went for the water. Do you remember that when he had to reach for the bottle of water? 

Tim Barton [00:09:04] Yes, very much so. 

Rick Green [00:09:05] And I don't remember if it was recorded or live, but that's, I don't even remember if it was, I assume it was Obama. I don't even remember who he's doing the response to. 

David Barton [00:09:15] Okay, so, next thing is, people think that we have a State of the Union Address, annual State of the Union because the Constitution requires it, it does not. Constitution says from time to time you give the Congress information on the State of the Union. So you could have five State of Unions a year, you could one every eight years if you're a president, it just got to be from time-to-time. There's nothing there that says how often. So the fact that we do it every year and we do in January, we've just come to accept that that's what the Constitution dictates and it's not. There is no, no frequency at all in the Constitution, except time to time. So that being said out of the way for that, I'm going to, this blew my mind; the first response to a State of the Union Address was 60 years ago under LBJ. It started with LBJ back in '66. So, we're, we're talking 60 years for 60 years there has been an opposition response to the State of the Union Address. Now, what's really kind of fascinating about that is since the 90s, they've all been live and so we're talking now 30 years that these things have been live and they feel so, so scripted to me. I thought a lot of them were pre-recorded, but they're live. So, I mean, there's just a lot kind of fun stuff with this. Here's some of the history of this stuff. In 1970, Democrats aired a 45-minute pre-recorded program, but it wasn't a response to the State of the Union. Here's what we Democrats believe. And so, they had all sorts of people just, you know, they kind of said the president got that 45 minutes of free publicity, we're gonna do 45 minutes for the Democrats. So, it was pre-recorded, but it really wasn't response to State of Union, but they did it to kind of equalize. Then in 1982, Democrats did a 28-minute documentary as their response to the State of the Union. So, it had, again, nothing to do with what the president said it's just, here's what we Democrats believe. And then in 1985, Bill Clinton, Arkansas governor hosted a focus group after the Democrat, after the Republican thing with Reagan and kind of did, he kind of had a round table kind of thing on it. Some interesting types of ways that they have done this. Also interesting too is four presidents who delivered the State of Union address also delivered the rebuttal to the other party, State of the Union. So, they've both given a State of union and a response to the State of Union. So, four people in their lifetime have given it on both sides of the aisle, which is kind of interesting stuff. Who were the other ones? You said Clinton had done it. Who were other three? Gerald Ford. Gerald Ford did the first response ever. That was under LBJ. So, he's a Congress under LBJ and then he becomes president. Then George HW Bush did a response and then he becomes President and then Bill Clinton and then Joe Biden. And so, Joe Biden had also done a Democrat response. So, kind of fun stuff on this now back to the thing. So, it's live, but here's, here's where I think it gets interesting... 

Tim Barton [00:12:29] Let me ask one clarifying question. Was Joe Biden's rebuttal to the State of the Union later in the week from his own State of the Union or was.... 

David Barton [00:12:42] Man, I've lived with you too long. I knew that was going to be the question, 

Tim Barton [00:12:50] I'm just curious if he rebutted himself. 

Rick Green [00:12:54] I didn't see it coming, Tim, that was good. That was like highlight moment right there. I did not see that coming, that is good. Oh, what are you doing with that now, David? 

David Barton [00:13:08] So here, here's where the, you know, going back to Spamburger and it is so amazing to me. They had, they sold her as a moderate and she, since she has been in, it had been so stinking radical. I mean, she, she makes California look conservative in some ways. It's just crazy how far she's gone. So, she did the response and it looks, it looked pre-recorded because it was so scripted and it's so scripted because we're now in an era where that you can no longer really understand context if you make a mistake. If you have a slip on a phrase, it is going to be news and it doesn't matter what the context was. And so, I went back and looked and at the time of Nixon, at the time of LBJ, these others, your average soundbite was about 43 to 50 seconds. So, when you hear a phrase, you're gonna hear the context all around it and everything going with it. The soundbites now are down to five to seven seconds. And so that's why it feels so artificial because you have to write it and scrub it well in advance because if you say something even slightly wrong, that will get spread all over as if that's what you actually said rather than maybe a mistake in the slip. And that's, I don't like it for either side that way. I wish we could be free in expression and not have to run every single thing by a lawyer before you do it. Get it polled and get it tested and et cetera. But we have come to a point where we are so reactive to sound bites. And that's probably one of the things I dislike most about news now is in a 30-minute news program, I get three minutes of news and 27 minutes of the opinions of those who are reporting the news. And I get very little. And by the way, that's why we like Victory News. All of us are on Victory News, you get 15 to 20 news stories and 30 minutes, and you get commentary, maybe four or five, six minutes of commentary from guys like us, but the rest is just news. And that's the old school way. And I wish it was back to that because now we are so polarized that we attack. So, the Nicholas, he asked a great question. It got me curious as to how long, cause I didn't think the response State of the Union went back 60 years. And I definitely thought it's been pre-recorded, but it's, it's since the nineties, it has been live. It's what we've done since the 90s is live things, but now we're down to having lawyers write it. And, you know, and I don't know how they really do it because the president no longer releases his script early. They used to release it early. So, you know what he was going to say. They don't do that now because the opposition starts making something out of it before he even talks. So, I don't even know how they can have a response like Spanberger did. And know what is going to talk about. They just got to assume what he's going to about, which I think is why so many of the comments she made were absolutely off target and saying Trump said this when he really didn't. So, my opinions, throw it to you guys on State of the Union. What do you wanna do with it? 

Rick Green [00:16:06] Well, only thought I had was when you, when you mentioned that about Bill Clinton, I had, I totally forgotten about that. I certainly didn't watch it in real time. But, but I can recall now seeing clips of it later in life, you know, as he came to a national prominence, that was a big part of it, right? That began his sort of national presence. That actually sounds brilliant to me to sit around a focus group and have a conversation instead of a canned, you know, response and, and. I think if I remember right, as you were looking at them, was it, I forget the, the young lady's name, that's a state Senator, I mean, a US Senator Katie something Brit, maybe, I think she did a response to one of Biden's where it was more like in her kitchen or house or something. I'm, I'm trying to, that may have been a totally different thing that I'm thinking of, but I think that stage craft is smart. I think it, it makes sense to have a conversation with the American people sometimes instead of it seeming so formal. Obviously not, wouldn't recommend that all the time, but you know, maybe that's something for, you know, our folks to be considering even in just other arenas, but I think the Democrats would be wise to go back to some of their old playbooks and not have, you know, the canned response. But they don't have a Bill Clinton right now. You know, everybody they've got is so far out there to put her up there like you're saying, it seems like that's bad branding for the Democrat party, but who's their Bill Clinton that can sell their agenda? 

David Barton [00:17:30] Rick, why would they go back to what they used to do? Because what they're doing now, they're not losing ground. I mean, they are getting more radical, more stupid and not losing ground. Now that may say something about us that we are so far out of touch, but, but certainly they have not been punished yet for this kind of craziness or what we consider craziness. And until they get punished, there's probably not going to be any changes. 

Tim Barton [00:17:54] Well, and guys, this is why we talk about the importance of education so often, because the reason they've been getting away with it is because it's echoing what so much of the rising generation has been hearing. And so, the people thinking they are crazy are the people generally in our age range. There's not a lot of the rising generation. Now they might look and go, they're kind of crazy, but also, they've been programmed not to openly oppose it because they don't want to be canceled. They don't wanna be shamed. They don't be doxed. And so, I think part of why the crazy persists is the indoctrination of young people, but, also, the fear that's been instilled in those that disagree. So, I think there's a lot of factors involved in this, but certainly it's an issue to be dealt with. 

Rick Green [00:18:40] Yeah, good point, alright we're gonna take a quick break. We'll come back. We got another State of the Union question. Stay with us. It's Foundations of Freedom Thursday. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

Rick Green [00:19:54] Welcome back to the WallBuilders Show. Next question up also about the State of the Union. Dear David, Rick, and Tim, thank you for great content you provide every weekday on the WallBuilders Show. I was wondering who or what law and procedure decided that everyone from one party had to sit on one side of the house chamber and the other party had to set on the opposite side. Was it back in the day when they actually did their strategic work and chose those who would speak for or against a particular bill in the actual chamber, it seems that type of practice has long since disappeared. I wonder what would happen if they seated the members by the first letter of their last name and some, or some of the random method, could this spark interactions that might lead to understanding and cooperation or would it end up in a brawl? So good question, Gordon. Thanks for, thanks for sending that in. Interesting. So why is it that the Republicans sit on one side and Democrats on the other? 

David Barton [00:20:40] Well really there is no rule to do that and it's a what it is the rule of human behavior because we all want to hang with our friends. We don't like hanging with people we really don't know and we don’t. We go to a restaurant we go sit down by people we know. We don't sit down with people that we don t know and say hey let's develop a friendship here. And it is the same way in congress and the congressmen they don't get together all that often. I mean what we see in the House chamber and even if you watch C-SPAN, you'll see a guy giving a speech and there's usually not more than 10 or 12 in the house chamber and he gives a speech. So even when you think they're in the House chamber, they're usually not. Now, when they come in to vote, they all get there, but there, there may not be that many votes in a week. They may do three, four or five votes in week, and they're in there for 10, 15 minutes and they are gone. Now at State of the Union, they are in there going to be there, they didn't think they'd be there for two hours this time, but they were there for two hours this time. And so, they're in there. And I still know a number of members that make it a point to go to the other side and sit over on what's considered the Democrat side. They want to talk; they want to develop relationships. They want, they won't some, you know, some kind of reasonableness there. It's not very often that I know of a Democrat coming over to the Republican side to sit down, but it's just developed. And I think it's nothing more than human nature where that we go to the people we talk with the most, we have the most association with, we have the most likeableness with. People aren't likely to punch me in the face if I say the wrong thing. I mean, it's more of that kind of thing. There's no rule on why, on doing that. 

Tim Barton [00:22:12] Well, guys, also in fairness, even if you were a normal conservative Republican and there was some kind of like assigned seating and somehow you had stuck between like an Ilhan Omar and a Rashida Talaib, you would go crazy. But you could say the same thing. If you had a Democrat who wasn't totally crazy and they got sat by a Marjorie Taylor Green or somebody like that, they would go crazy. So it does make sense Dad, to your point that people generally want to tend to be around those that they like. And so that's even by the way on the Democrat-Republican side of the aisle that there are gonna be groups that are gonna coalesce to each other. You have the Freedom Caucus that they enjoy spending more time together there's gonna be different groups that are gonna have more in common they're gonna resonate more with each other. And Rick, you probably can speak to this firsthand knowledge matching being in the state legislature and having to navigate some of these things so, this is not a theoretical question for you. 

Rick Green [00:23:05] Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that even as I read the question from our audience member, because in Texas, we don't, you don't do that. Everybody's kind of, you pick your seat and so you can choose who you, who you sit by, but it's very mixed. I mean, a lot of Republicans, Democrats sit together. It's different groups kind of in different spots on the floor, but it all done by seniority. So, you're somewhat limited if you're, if you are a young member, like I was, I only served two terms, so I never had any big seniority, but I was able to pick the seat I wanted, which was next to a senior Republican from Houston named Charlie Howard that I knew was a super conservative and just would, would mentor me well. And, and he did, there was a few times when he put his hand on my shoulder and held me in my chair and wouldn't let me get up and go to the microphone, as David well remembers. I was, I was quite too brash and charged every hill. In fact, I think that was the term you use David when the first time we sat down after my first session, you were like, you don't have to charge every hill son, slow down a little bit, don't take every fight. But anyway, Charlie was great, but I, I do think there, I saw benefit. In the mix, you know, across the house floor. I know Washington's very different. It's even more jaded than we are locally in our, in our states. Honestly, as crazy as the Democrats are in Washington now, and frankly, you're in Texas too, I could see why if you were a Republican, you wouldn't w wouldn't want to sit over there in the, in the midst of the craziness. But David, your point is also, very well taken that for them, they're rarely in there together. I mean, it's usually one or two people making a speech, it’s rare that they're all in there. For the Texas House we were in there every day together. The whole chamber was in there for hours and hours and hours together. So, that is probably, I think what you were saying is probably an even better reason why they continue to, to do the, on the right and on the left thing. 

Tim Barton [00:24:48] All right, guys, but let's go back to Congress. We're about to close, I get that. But because in Congress, if you get to choose your seat, who are you sitting by? And let's put it this way. Rick, you get a choose someone that we would not be blessed to sit by. And then we get to choose the good people to sit bye. So, who would you choose if like we have, you know, like the angel on your right shoulder, the Democrat on the left shoulder, how would you do it? 

Rick Green [00:25:19] Well, well, thinking, thinking back to, to Charlie Howard, putting his arm around me and holding me in my chair once in a while, if I were able to do that all the time to a particular Democrat and keep them from ever getting to the microphone so they could never go up and speak, if it was Congress, it would probably be Hakeem Jeffries. If it was, if it was Texas, it would be Jay, uh what's his name? Tala... 

Tim Barton [00:25:41] James, James Tallarico?

Rick Green [00:25:43] Yeah, Tallarico. So. That would be my thought.