‘STRONGER THAN EVER’
Trump touts economic gains, lays out vision for future
“In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny. We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never going back!” PRESIDENT TRUMP
Washington — Addressing the nation in extraordinary times, President Donald Trump declared America “stronger than ever before” Tuesday night as he delivered his State of the Union address on the eve of his likely impeachment acquittal and in the aftermath of the chaotic first votes of the race to replace him.
The first president to run for reelection after being impeached, Trump received a sharply partisan welcome to the House of Representatives, with some Republicans chanting “four more years” while Democrats stood silently.
“America’s enemies are on the run, America’s fortunes are on the rise and America’s future is blazing bright,” Trump declared. “In just three short years, we have shattered the mentality of American decline and we have rejected the downsizing of America’s destiny. We are moving forward at a pace that was unimaginable just a short time ago, and we are never going back!”
Setting a yardstick for success and then contending he’d surpassed it, Trump has gone from an inaugural address that decried “American carnage” to extolling the “Great American comeback,” claiming credit for the nation’s economic success as a chief rationale for a second term.
Republican members of Congress applauded nearly every sentence of Trump’s speech, often leaping to their feet to cheer him.
The only suspense concerned whether he would address the impeachment charges against him.
In the nationally televised speech, Trump was speaking from the House of Representatives, on the opposite side of the Capitol from where the Senate one day later was expected to acquit him largely along party lines.
Trump aimed to spend the first part of his speech highlighting the economy’s strength, including low unemployment, stressing how it has helped blue-collar workers and the middle class, though the period of growth began under his predecessor, Barack Obama.
And what Trump calls an unprecedented boom is, by many measures, not all that different from the solid economy he inherited from Obama. Economic growth was 2.3% in 2019, matching the average pace since the Great Recession ended a decade ago in the first year of Obama’s eight-year presidency. Trump had promised much higher.
The White House promised an optimistic speech that would look past the impeachment trial that has consumed Washington in favor of a recitation of accomplishments and promises.
Some highlights of the speech:
When Trump called on Congress during his State of the Union speech to send him legislation to lower prescription drug prices, House Democrats had a ready response.
“H.R. 3! H.R. 3!” chanted Democrats, jumping to their feet, holding up three fingers.
That was a reference to the House-passed bill that requires the federal government’s Medicare program to negotiate for lower prices on insulin and other must-have drugs Americans rely on.
The legislation is formally named the Elijah E. Cummings Lower Drug Costs Now Act, after the late House Oversight Committee chairman from Maryland.
Trump derided the ailing Cummings’ Baltimore-area district as a “rat and rodent-infested mess” last summer, when the chairman was conducting oversight on the president’s immigration policies and child and family detentions at the border.
The drug price reduction bill was passed by the House in December on a largely party-line vote. It is one of many major bills sitting untouched in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh was awarded the Presidential Medal
of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.
Trump announced the award during his address. First lady Melania Trump presented the award to Limbaugh. The two sat next to each other in the House visitors’ gallery. A bearded Limbaugh stood and saluted Trump as the award was announced.
Limbaugh, a staunch Trump supporter, announced Monday that he is battling advanced lung cancer.
Trump said the diagnosis was not good news, but added: “What is good news is that he is the greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet.’’
Trump thanked Limbaugh for “decades of tireless devotion to our country” and said the award recognized the millions of people a day Limbaugh speaks to and inspires, as well as his charity work.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó helped usher in a rare moment of unity at Trump’s State of the Union.
Democrats and Republicans applauded as Guaidó stood as Trump called him the legitimate president of the South American nation.
Guaidó is the leader of the opposition-led National Assembly in Venezuela. He was a last-minute surprise invited guest of Trump’s.
The U.S. and more than 50 other nations believe the 2018 reelection of President Nicolás Maduro was illegitimate and say Guaidó should be considered president under the Venezuelan constitution. Trump in his speech called Maduro a “tyrant.”
Even for a Trump-era news cycle that seems permanently set to hyper-speed, the breakneck pace of events dominating the first week of February offered a singular backdrop for the president’s address. Yet Trump told TV anchors at a midday meal that his address would be “extraordinarily low key.”
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who has presided in the Senate over only the third impeachment trial in the nation’s history, was be on hand Tuesday night — this time in his more customary seat in the audience. Trump stood before the very lawmakers who have voted to remove him from office — and those who are expected to acquit him when the Senate trial comes to a close.
And over his shoulder, visible in nearly every camera shot, was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a frequent thorn in Trump’s side who authorized the impeachment proceedings that charged the president with abusing the power of his office to push Ukraine to investigate a political foe. Pelosi created a viral image with her seemingly sarcastic applause of the president a year ago. When Trump entered the chamber this time, he did not take her outstretched hand but it was not clear he had seen her gesture. Later, as Republicans cheered, she remained in her seat.
Trump was staring out at some of the Democrats who have been vying to take his job, although it was unclear if he would weigh in on the confusion in Iowa, where the results of Monday’s leadoff caucuses were delayed. In advance of his address, Trump tweeted that the caucus chaos showed Democrats were incompetent and should not be trusted to run the government.
Trump spent the hours before his speech tucked away at the White House, hosting network anchors for lunch while working on final drafts of the address. He entered the moment on a roll, with his impeachment acquittal imminent, his job approval numbers ticking upward and Wall Street looking strong. Aides played down the possibility that he would use the address to seek vengeance over impeachment.
“I think that this has gone on for too long and I think that, if you look at the ratings, the American people are frankly bored of it,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told Fox News early Tuesday.
In the closest historical comparison, Bill Clinton did not mention his recent impeachment when he delivered his State of the Union in 1999. In his address a year ago, Trump did remain on message, making no mention of how Pelosi had originally disinvited him from delivering the speech during the longest government shutdown in the nation’s history.
Trump stressed the new trade agreements he has negotiated, including his phaseone deal with China and the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement he signed last month.
While the White House said the president would have a message of unity, he also planned to spend time on issues that have created great division and resonated with his political base. He will attack the Democrats’ health care proposals for being too intrusive and again highlight his signature issue — immigration — trumpeting the miles of border wall that have been constructed.
“The United States of America should be a Sanctuary for Law-Abiding Americans – Not Criminal Aliens!” Trump is to say, according to the excerpts. “My Administration has undertaken an unprecedented effort to secure the Southern Border of the United States.”