Jen Psaki, a CNN political commentator, was the White House communications director and State Department spokeswoman during the Obama administration. She is vice president of communications and strategy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow her at @jrpsaki. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) He did it. President Donald Trump stood in front of a teleprompter and read a speech that at many times sounded like it was about the leadership, tolerance and moral compass -- of another President. Now that the pomp and circumstance of his first State of the Union speech is over, the most important question we should be asking ourselves is what is next?

In late February of last year, Trump also delivered a speech in front of a joint session that, like tonight, was by all accounts sane sounding. Pundits and editorial boards of all political stripes fell over themselves to applaud him. The country breathed a sigh of relief: maybe this guy can govern. Maybe it will be OK.

But his joint session speech had no relationship with the way he approached governing in the year since. As the old saying goes -- "fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me." So let's not be fooled.

Speeches don't happen in vacuums, even State of the Union speeches. They amplify and magnify any president's agenda and his message. And it only becomes more difficult to reset a widely held narrative -- that you are racist, sexist, a defender of the wealthy over those who need help the most -- when your audience has a year of data to evaluate.

Dreamers and immigrant families are not going to suddenly view Trump as their fighter in chief because he threw some pablum language into the beginning of the speech about how, "struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American workers and American families"-- especially since just moments later in his remarks he doubled down on the mean-spirited proposal that harks back to the cruel immigration quota laws of the 1920's.

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