State of the Union
Trump addresses nation
WASHINGTON — Facing a divided Congress for the first time, President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Washington to govern “not as two parties, but as one nation” — a message that clashed with the rancorous atmosphere in the nation’s capital after the longest government shutdown in history.
Trump, who has spent two years leveling fiercely personal attacks on his Democratic rivals, declared that it was time “to bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future.”
Trump’s speech to lawmakers and the nation comes at a critical moment in his presidency. He pushed his party into a lengthy government shutdown over border security, only to cave to Democrats. With another shutdown deadline looming, the president has few options for getting Congress to fund a border wall, and he risks further alienating his party if he tries to circumvent lawmakers by declaring a national emergency instead.
As he stood before lawmakers, the president was surrounded by symbols of his emboldened political opposition. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was praised by Democrats for her hard-line negotiating during the shutdown, sat behind Trump as he spoke. House Democratic women created a sea of white, donning the color favored by early 20th-century suffragettes. And several senators running for president were also in the audience, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Another Democratic star, Stacey Abrams, will deliver the party’s response to Trump. Abrams narrowly lost her bid in November to become America’s first black female governor, and party leaders are aggressively recruiting her to run for U.S. Senate from Georgia.
In excerpts released ahead of Abrams’ remarks, she calls the shutdown a political stunt that “defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people, but our values.”
Visit The Sentinel-Record’s website, http://www.hotsr.com, for complete coverage of the president’s speech.
In early excerpts from his speech, Trump was to accuse “wealthy politicians and donors” of pushing “for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.”
As Pelosi climbed the dais, they gathered in the aisle of the Democratic side of the House, raising their voices and hands as other members raised their cell phones and recorded the moment. Most women on that side of the House chamber were wearing the color favored by suffragettes and the president’s opponents who want him to see them from the dais.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore a white caped blazer. A man wore white, too: Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota.
The palpable excitement comes after the November elections sent a record number of women, most of them Democrats, to Congress.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the so-called designated survivor for this year’s State of the Union address.
By tradition, one Cabinet secretary is closeted away at a secure, undisclosed location to ensure continuity of government in case disaster strikes while government leaders attend the speech.
The choice of Perry was confirmed by a White House official, who was not authorized to disclose the person’s identity, and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was last year’s designated survivor.
Trump’s choice this year was limited by the number of “acting” secretaries in the Cabinet. Only Senate-confirmed secretaries (and natural-born citizens) in the line of succession to the presidency can assume control of government in a crisis.
Trump’s two Supreme Court picks were among four justices were expected to attend the State of the Union. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was not among them.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan were expected to join Trump nominees Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch in the House chamber on Tuesday.
Justices typically attend State of the Union speeches given by the president who nominated them. Roberts and Kagan have never missed the State of the Union address since they’ve been on the court.
The 85-year-old Ginsburg is recovering from cancer surgery in December. She made her first public appearance since the surgery on Monday at a concert given by her daughter-in-law in Washington, D.C. Ginsburg did not attend Trump’s speech last year, either.
“No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration,” Trump will say, according to excerpts released ahead of his address. “Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.”
But even as his advisers touted bipartisanship, reality kept breaking through in the hours before Trump’s speech.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York accused Trump of “blatant hypocrisy,” saying the president may want to talk about unity on Tuesday but “spends the other 364 days of the year dividing us.”
Minutes later, Trump tweeted that Schumer was “just upset that he didn’t win the Senate, after spending a fortune.”
Against that backdrop, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is inching toward a potential agreement that would give Trump just a fraction of what he’s demanding. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who stood by Trump during the shutdown, said Tuesday that his top priority is forging a bipartisan House-Senate agreement, not placating Trump.
“I think the conferees ought to reach an agreement and then we’ll hope that the president finds it worth signing,” said McConnell, R-Ky.
While Trump was still putting the final touches on the speech Tuesday afternoon, he was expected to use some of his televised address to showcase a growing economy. Despite the shutdown, the U.S. economy added a robust 304,000 jobs in January, marking 100 straight months of job growth. That’s the longest such period on record.
Trump and his top aides have also hinted that he is likely to use the address to announce a major milestone in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Despite the objections of some advisers, Trump announced in December that he was withdrawing U.S. forces in Syria.
In a weekend interview with CBS, Trump said efforts to defeat the IS group were “at 99 percent right now. We’ll be at 100.”
Foreign policy has been another area where Republicans have increasingly been willing to distance themselves from the president. Several leading GOP lawmakers have sharply criticized his plans to withdraw from Syria, as well as from Afghanistan.
Trump, in excerpts of his address, defended his moves, declaring: “Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
Trump is expected to detail other looming threats from abroad, including Iran and the tumult in Venezuela, where the U.S. has called on embattled President Nicolas Maduro to step down. Trump may also preview plans to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Administration officials say the White House has also been weighing several “moonshot” goals. An announcement is expected on a new initiative aimed at ending transmissions of HIV by 2030. “He will be asking for bipartisan support to make that happen,” said White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.
Trump’s guests for the speech include Anna Marie Johnson, a woman whose life sentence for drug offenses was commuted by the president, and Joshua Trump, a sixth-grade student from Wilmington, Delaware, who has been bullied over his last name. They will sit with first lady Melania Trump during the address.