President Joe Biden’s 2024 State of the Union is set to be far more consequential than his 2023 address. The Biden administration, not to mention his campaign, are sure to try and seize on the March 7 speech as a pivot point – a “reset” – as Biden turns his attention towards the 2024 election in earnest. 

Much ink will be spilled about how alert, decrepit, or energetic the president seems. Slightly less coverage will be devoted to what was actually said. How will the president address his glaring policy vulnerabilities on immigration and crime? And how strongly does he take the Republican House to task on Ukraine and appeal to the American people regarding a global struggle for democracy? Though the 2024 State of the Union may be more important than most, given that it will kick off a new phase of Biden’s reelection campaign – not to mention the coverage of Biden’s vitality and lingering inquiry as to whether he has the ability to excite the flagging Democratic base – the bar for success is low. After all, the address really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of politics or policy.

That’s why, instead of excoriating the message, messenger, congressional intrigue, or impact of the speech overall, a lot of focus will be spent on the speech’s relevance concerning the election at hand. Though direct invocations of Donald Trump are unlikely (expect some more veiled references to the threat to democracy and far-right extremists), there is no question his specter will loom over the address.

The world in which we find ourselves is unlike any that anyone currently alive has seen, where the former president – who was ousted by the current incumbent – is on pace for a rematch. The only useful comparison is Grover Cleveland’s nonconsecutive encore as president, after he defeated President Benjamin Harrison in 1892, who had himself previously defeated the incumbent Cleveland in 1888. The parallel is useful for the modern day, though a bit skewed: Cleveland easily achieved his third consecutive Democratic presidential nomination in 1892, but only after a bloodbath midterm encouraged him to step back into the ring; Trump never really ceased being the de facto “boss” of the Republican Party, even though his party dramatically underperformed in the intervening midterm.

Trump is unusual in that, while he’s been out of power, his party has become more reflective of his desired ends. The former president has spent years endorsing his chosen standard-bearers in leadership positions, for elected offices, and declaring which Republicans are sufficiently Trumpy enough. Though this has led to mixed success in general elections (the 2022 midterms allowed moderate Democrats to overcome the Republican-leaning headwinds and handily defeat a number of MAGA-aligned candidates), the Republican Party has unquestionably become a Trump fiefdom, with Trump himself as the kingmaker. This is epitomized recently by the resignation of Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel following Trump’s calls for a leadership change, requesting that his daughter-in-law be named co-chair.

So, where does the State of the Union come in? Starting in the 1960s, but less sporadically in the last 40 years, the opposition party has delivered a “response” to the State of the Union following the president’s address. The Response is typically given by someone seen as an up-and-comer in the party, reflective of where they see the party going, and someone who is an effective foil against the incumbent president – four future presidents gave the Response, as have a number of future presidential nominees, not to mention an array of presidential wannabes (2016 and 2020 Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio and Nikki Haley, respectively, both delivered Responses to Barack Obama addresses). That said, and as Rubio can attest, these addresses are never memorable for anything other than quirky moments; largely, they are as forgettable as the overarching State of the Union itself.

This year, the designated deliverer of the Response is still unknown. But, a thought percolating through the discourse – one which I want to emphatically argue for – is this: the 2024 response should be given by Donald Trump.

As made manifest that a number of future presidents and presidential candidates have delivered the Response, it is intended as a proxy statement by the elected party apparatus as to who they perceive to be a potential future star of their party. Never before in American history has the response been given by the party’s presumptive nominee for president in an election year, but there has also never been a presumptive nominee who has had this level of kingmaking power over the party this early in the process (when the State of the Union occurs) either. Nor has a spectacle of a three-time nominee, attempting to return to power after being voted out, occurred in the modern, television-influenced era of American politics.

Trump is primed as the all-but-assured presidential nominee of said party, having willfully bent its apparatus to his political and personal whims for years, and will be directly challenging President Biden this November. It is he, and – by his own machinations – he alone, who should deliver to the American people his case for why the president has failed and why he would be a better leader. If the Republican Party has morphed into Trump’s party, and it clearly has, then he is the most obvious figure to deliver a response. Leaning into his novelty in the grand history of the United States, he’s even delivered an “unofficial” response before, after Biden’s 2023 State of the Union.

It is House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell who ultimately make the decision as to who gives the “official response.” They’ve named telegenic and starry-eyed Alabama Senator Katie Britt but nothing stops Trump from either throwing a fit until he is permitted to give the “official” Response, or – more likely – giving the unofficial (but by far higher profile, bringing into question the “official” designation anyway) Response. 

If the purpose of the Response is to boost the profile of a mid-bench member of the opposition party, then Katie Britt will do. But, if the point of the Response is to criticize and provide a direct alternative to the sitting president, to contrast not just policy choices but political choices as well, and to position its party and its candidates as strongly and earnestly as possible for the forthcoming election, then there is no one other than Donald Trump who should deliver it.