Top highlights from Trump's late night July 4 address: 'No dream in history is bigger'

Thirty-seven minutes after a lightning delay, and the president is still up there talking about beating communism forever. You have to admire the stamina, honestly. Most people would have taken the weather as a sign to cut it short and go home.

But the substance matters more than the runway. Honoring Gold Star families on the Fourth isn't a talking point, it's the whole reason the fireworks mean anything. Those families paid the actual price for the freedoms everyone else spends the holiday barbecuing under. A speech that puts them front and center, even a long one, is doing something right that a lot of official Washington has forgotten how to do.

The "no dream in history is bigger" line will get mocked by people who mock everything this president says. Fine. But strip away the showmanship and there's a real claim underneath it: that America 250 is worth treating as a big deal, not a footnote. That's not a bad instinct to have on July 4th, storm delay and all.