SOTU NOTEBOOK

Schumer, Trump spar before unity speech

The bitter partisanship of the past two years was on full display hours before President Donald Trump called for optimism and unity in his State of the Union address.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that the president talks about unity in his annual addresses but “spends the other 364 days of the year dividing us.”

Trump responded that Schumer was “just upset that he didn’t win the Senate, after spending a fortune.”

Iowan accused of racism brings African-american

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King’s State of the Union guest was Lynette Hardaway, otherwise known as the video blogger Diamond.

King tweeted on Tuesday that since he only has one guest seat, he flipped a coin between inviting Hardaway and her video partner, Rochelle Richardson, also known as Silk. Hardaway won.

The Iowa congressman has come under fire recently for views that some consider racist. King denies he is a racist.

Both women, known as Diamond & Silk, are Africanamerican and prominent Trump supporters.

Transgender service members among guests

Among House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s State of the Union guests were the Planned Parenthood president, active-duty transgender service members and chef Jose Andres. Andres heads a charity that began in 2010 to feed earthquake survivors in Haiti and that offered free food and coffee to furloughed workers during the partial government shutdown.

Among the other guests was Fred Guttenberg, the father of a Parkland, Florida, student killed by gun violence.

Us-nkorea summit set for Vietnam this month

In his speech Tuesday night, President Donald Trump said he will hold a two-day summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam to continue his efforts to persuade Kim to give up his nuclear weapons.

Trump has said his outreach to Kim and their first meeting last June in Singapore opened a path to peace. But there is not yet a concrete plan for how denuclearization could be implemented.