Focus Live: Trump touts U.S. economy in State of the Union address.
Standing before a Congress and nation sharply divided by impeachment, President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address today to extol a "Great American Comeback" on his watch, just three years after he took office decrying a land of "American carnage" under his predecessor.
The partisan discord was apparent for all to see as the first president to campaign for reelection while facing impeachment vigorously made his case for another term: Republican legislators chanted "Four More Years." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped up her copy of Trump's speech as he ended his address.
"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!"
President Donald Trump declared America "stronger than ever before". Photo / AP
Offering the nation's economic success as the chief rationale for a second term, Trump's speech resembled a lower-volume version of his campaign rallies, offering something for every section of his political base.
But while he tweets daily assailing his impeachment, Trump never mentioned the "i-word" in his 78-minute speech. He spoke 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.
Pelosi, a frequent thorn in Trump's side, created a viral image with her seemingly sarcastic applause of the president a year ago. This time, she was even more explicit with her very public rebuke.
Trump was barely done, turning to greet the crowd of lawmakers, when Pelosi turned the papers in her hand and ripped them up.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tears her copy of President Donald Trump's State of the Union address right after he delivered it. Photo / AP
Asked afterwards in the halls of the Capitol why she did it, Pelosi responded: "It was the courteous thing to do considering the alternative."
Trump appeared no more cordial. When he climbed to the House rostrum, he did not take her outstretched hand though it was not clear he had seen her gesture. Later, as Republicans often cheered, she remained in her seat, at times shaking her head at his remarks.
Trump, the former reality TV star added a showbiz flavour to the staid event: He had wife Melania present the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, to the divisive conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh, who recently announced he has advanced lung cancer.
He stunned a young student in the gallery with a scholarship. And he orchestrated the surprise tearful reunion of a solider from overseas with his family in the balcony. 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.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who has presided in the Senate over only the third impeachment trial in the nation's history, was on hand again — 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.
The leading Senate Democrats hoping to unseat him in November were campaigning in New Hampshire.
In advance of his address, Trump tweeted that the chaos in Iowa's Monday leadoff caucuses showed Democrats were incompetent and should not be trusted to run the government.
Among Trump's guests in the chamber: Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has been trying to win face time with Trump, his most important international ally.
The president offered Guaidó exactly the sort of endorsement he's been looking for as he struggles to oust President Nicolás Maduro from power. Trump called Guaidó "the true and legitimate president of Venezuela."
"Socialism destroys nations," Trump declared.
Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido waves as President Donald Trump delivers his State of the Union address. Photo / AP
The president entered the evening on a roll, with his impeachment acquittal imminent, his job approval numbers ticking upward and Wall Street looking strong. He struck a largely optimistic tone, though even in past moments when Trump has struck a tone of bipartisanship and cooperation, he has consistently returned to harsher rhetoric within days.
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 spent much of the 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 President Barack 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.
Donald Trump spent much of the speech highlighting the economy's strength. Photo / AP
Trump stressed the new trade agreements he has negotiated, including his phase-one 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 spent time on issues that have created great division and resonated with his political base. He attacked Democrats' health care proposals for being too intrusive and again highlighted his signature issue — immigration — trumpeting the miles of border wall that have been constructed.
He also dedicated a section to "American values," discussing efforts to protect "religious liberties" and limit access to abortion as he continues to court the evangelical and conservative Christian voters who form a crucial part of his base.
The Democrats were supplying plenty of counter-programming, focusing on health care — the issue key to their takeover of the House last year. Trump, for his part, vowed to not allow a "socialist takeover of our health care system" a swipe at the Medicare For All proposal endorsed by some of his Democratic challengers.
Nancy Pelosi reacts after Donald Trump turns away from her outstretched hand. Photo / AP
Many female Democrats were wearing white as tribute to the suffragettes, while a number in the party were wearing red, white and blue-striped lapel pins to highlight climate change, saying Trump has rolled back environmental safeguards and given free rein to polluters.
Several Democratic lawmakers, including California Rep. Maxine Waters and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, announced in advance of the speech that they would be skipping it, with the high-profile New York freshman tweeting that she would "not use my presence at a state ceremony to normalise Trump's lawless conduct & subversion of the Constitution."
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer delivered her party's official response and drew a contrast between actions taken by Democrats and the president's rhetoric.
"It doesn't matter what the president says about the stock market," Whitmer said. "What matters is that millions of people struggle to get by or don't have enough money at the end of the month after paying for transportation, student loans, or prescription drugs."
Trump's special guests
A mother who lost her Army husband to a roadside bomb in Iraq. A man whose brother was killed by someone the White House contends should have been deported rather than released from jail. A 2-year-old girl born at 21 weeks.
The three individuals are some of the "real people" who helped Trump highlight key messages in the State of the Union address.
Invited by the White House, the guests sat in the House chamber, high up in the gallery.
Rush Limbaugh reacts as it is announced he will be presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Photo / AP
Conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh sat alongside first lady Melania Trump and was presented the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honour bestowed by presidents.
Limbaugh has spent his career attacking and disparaging Democratic lawmakers and leaders, and recently announced he has cancer. Trump called him the "greatest fighter and winner that you will ever meet."
When Trump looked up at Kelli and Gage Hake of Stillwater, Oklahoma, he reminded the nation about the targeted drone strike he ordered in January that killed Qassem Soleimani, then Iran's top military commander.
Kelli Hake was home with Gage, then 1-year-old, in the spring of 2008 when she was informed that her husband, Army Staff Sgt. Christopher Hake, had been killed during his second tour of duty in Iraq. The White House claims the sergeant's fighting vehicle was hit by a roadside bomb supplied by Soleimani.
Kelli and Gage Hake of Stillwater cry as they are recognised by President Donald Trump. Photo / AP
Trump has said he ordered the strike against Soleimani, who had just arrived at the airport in Baghdad, Iraq, on Jan. 3, because he was actively plotting attacks on US service members in the region.
Trump also highlighted his clampdown on illegal immigration, using the December 2018 killing in California of Rocky Jones. The White House blames California's "sanctuary state" policy for allowing the release from jail of a man it said should have been deported instead.
The man went on a crime spree and Jones was among the victims, according to local news reports. The victim's brother, Jody Jones, was a State of the Union guest.
California's former governor signed legislation in October 2017 prohibiting state and local agencies from cooperating with federal immigration authorities regarding people illegally in the U.S. who had committed crimes.
Trump also introduced 13-year-old Iain Lanphier, an eighth-grader from Arizona, to promote the launch of Space Force, the first new military service in more than 70 years.
Trump said Lanphier "has his eye on the Space Force" and noted that his hero, sitting next to him, was his great-grandfather, Charles McGee, one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. They both received bipartisan applause.
Tuskegee airman Charles McGee, 100, and his great grandson Iain Lanphier. Photo / AP
Other guests' stories helped Trump call attention to his advocacy for school choice and opportunity zones, which he created in a 2017 tax law to give tax breaks to investors in low-income areas.
Also attending the speech was Ivan Simonovis, the former police chief of Venezuela's capital of Caracas. Simonovis was imprisoned in 2004 and held for nearly 15 years on what he considered trumped-up charges of ordering police to fire on pro-government demonstrators during a coup against then-President Hugo Chavez. Simonovis escaped last year and was brought to the United States.
His detention has been a rallying cry for the opposition in Venezuela, currently led by Juan Guaidó, who has the backing from the US and nearly 60 nations that considered President Nicolas Maduro's 2018 election a fraud. These countries also blame Maduro's socialist policies for a political and economic crisis threatening the region's stability. Guaidó was also a special guest. Trump called Guaidó the "true and legitimate" leader of Venezuela.
