What to watch in tonight’s State of the Union: Trump’s adjectives, Melania, boycotts
January 31, 2018 by admin
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The state of the union is … great again? Or not quite?
A year into his presidency, President Donald Trump will stand before the nation Tuesday night to account for his promise to “make America great again” amid talk of a rising threat of nuclear war and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Trump’s 2016 campaign.
For both parties, the speech operates like the pop of a starting gun for the midterm elections, when Republicans will defend their majorities in the House and Senate.
Here’s a look at what to watch:
How superlative?
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday previewed the speech by describing the state of the union as “incredible.”
But will the hyperbole-loving president tone down his bombastic speaking style a bit? The White House is setting expectations as close to “yes” as possible — but only for as long as the speech itself lasts. Expect the president to cast the tax overhaul he signed in December and the strong economy as Trump initiatives that help all Americans. Thematically, Trump is expected to speak of having built the foundation for a safer and stronger nation.
But can Trump stay on message — and off Twitter — after the reviews come in?
The elephant in the chamber
Will Trump make any mention of Mueller’s probe of Russian connections and obstruction of justice, or his own expressed willingness to be interviewed under oath? Trump told reporters last week he’d “love” to be interviewed under oath about the matter. But his lawyers didn’t seem as enthusiastic and are still negotiating.
FLOTUS
First lady Melania Trump will face extra scrutiny this year — and not just because of the former model’s fashionable couture.
Mrs. Trump’s movements have been closely watched ever since The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that the president’s lawyer had arranged a payment to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, to keep her from talking about an alleged 2006 affair with the future president. The couple’s 13th wedding anniversary passed without public comment last week, and Mrs. Trump abruptly announced she was skipping a trip with her husband to an economic summit last week in Switzerland.
Who’s there
Often who is in the chamber reflects the president’s priorities. Seated around Mrs. Trump will be more than a dozen guests, including small-business owners, beneficiaries of tax relief, victims of gang violence and a police officer who adopted a baby from parents addicted to opioids.
Democrats are strategically populating their guest lists, too — with faces of the immigration debate that is roiling Congress and vexing Trump. Their guests will include immigrants who are among the nearly 700,000 people who received protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump canceled the program last year but gave Congress until March to come up with a legislative fix.
Who’s not
Traditionally, one member of the Cabinet stays away from the address for security reasons. One question is whether Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated for the Supreme Court, will attend the speech. Justice Samuel Alito, who shook his head and mouthed “not true” at President Barack Obama during the 2010 State of the Union speech, has not attended a presidential address since.
Some Democratic lawmakers plan to boycott the president’s address.
What they wear
Typically, some female lawmakers wear bright colors so they will stand out on television. But this year, several Democratic women plan to wear black to protest sexual harassment after a season of scandals toppled male leaders across industries. Congress is no exception: Accusations have forced resignations and retirements in both parties. Trump, too, has faced sexual assault allegations.
Rebuttal
Rep. Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts will deliver the Democratic response to the president’s address. He is the grandson of the late Robert F. Kennedy, the senator and U.S. attorney general, and the son of former Rep. Joseph Kennedy II, who served in the House from 1987 to 1999. Democratic leaders are pitching Kennedy as someone who can champion Democratic policies to the middle class.
Then this happens
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is scheduled to appear on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” following Trump’s address. She said she had an affair with Trump shortly after he married Melania Trump.
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Today in Trumpworld — Jan. 29
January 30, 2018 by admin
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TRUMP’S SCHEDULE TODAY
11 a.m.: President Donald Trump will receive his daily intelligence briefing in the Oval Office.
Story Continued Below
11:30 a.m.: Trump will participate in the swearing-in ceremony for Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.
12:10 p.m.: Trump will have lunch with U.N. Security Council diplomats at the White House.
DAILY BRIEFING: Press secretary Sarah Sanders will brief the press at the White House at 1:15 p.m.
STATE OF THE UNION WATCH: From POLITICO’s Seung Min Kim and Rachael Bade: “President Donald Trump’s inaugural State of the Union on Tuesday could offer an opportunity for the first-term leader to unify Congress behind a plan to protect the undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers. Instead, the immigration blueprint his administration laid out days before the highly anticipated address is splintering Congress in all directions, with conservatives complaining it provides amnesty for immigrants who lack legal status and Democrats recoiling from Trump’s pitch to restrict legal, family-based immigration. Trump plans to put the weight of the bully pulpit behind his immigration proposal on Tuesday night and attempt to rally lawmakers around his plan, but some Republicans already think the president’s wish list is too broad to find agreement in Congress. An ever-widening group of senators is still trying to forge ahead with their own legislative ideas. Some senators have urged Trump to help them move toward a deal by striking a compassionate tone during his speech.”
THE INFRASTRUCTURE PLAN: From POLITICO’s Lauren Gardner: “President Donald Trump won the White House promising a $1 trillion, 10-year blueprint to rebuild America — an initiative he said would create millions of jobs while making the nation’s highways, bridges, railroad and airports ‘second to none.’ But the infrastructure plan he’s poised to pitch in Tuesday’s State of the Union is already drawing comparisons to the ‘The Hunger Games.’ Instead of the grand, New Deal-style public works program that Trump’s eye-popping price tag implies, Democratic lawmakers and mayors fear the plan would set up a vicious, zero-sum scramble for a relatively meager amount of federal cash — while forcing cities and states to scrounge up more of their own money, bringing a surge of privately financed toll roads, and shredding regulations in the name of building projects faster. The federal share of the decade-long program would be $200 billion, a sum Trump himself concedes is ‘not a large amount.’ The White House contends it would lure a far larger pool of state, local and private money off the sidelines, steering as much as $1.8 trillion to needs as diverse as highways, rural broadband service, drinking water systems and veterans hospitals. (Maybe even commercial spaceflight, one recently leaked draft suggests.)”
THE MEMO FIGHT: From the New York Times’ Nicholas Fandos, Adam Goldman and Sharon LaFraniere: “A secret, highly contentious Republican memo reveals that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein approved an application to extend surveillance of a former Trump campaign associate shortly after taking office last spring, according to three people familiar with it. The renewal shows that the Justice Department under President Trump saw reason to believe that the associate, Carter Page, was acting as a Russian agent. But the reference to Mr. Rosenstein’s actions in the memo — a much-disputed document that paints the investigation into Russian election meddling as tainted from the start — indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the inquiry. The memo’s primary contention is that F.B.I. and Justice Department officials failed to adequately explain to an intelligence court judge in initially seeking a warrant for surveillance of Mr. Page that they were relying in part on research by an investigator, Christopher Steele, that had been financed by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Democrats who have read the document say Republicans have cherry-picked facts to create a misleading and dangerous narrative.”
IMMIGRATION LATEST: From the Washington Post’s David Nakamura: “Lawmakers in both parties said Sunday that the immigration debate should focus narrowly on efforts to legalize young immigrants known as ‘dreamers’ and beef up border security, suggesting that President Trump’s demands to slash legal immigration levels are likely to sink a deal. Democrats have voiced fierce opposition to a White House plan, released late last week, that featured a path to citizenship for 1.8 million dreamers in exchange for $25 billion for his border wall and sharp cuts to family immigration visas. Though Democratic leaders have grudgingly offered wall funding, they have accused the president of leveraging the dreamers as ‘ransom’ to severely constrict legal immigration, calling it a wish list for ‘anti-immigration hard-liners’ and ‘white supremacists.’ Congress members, including some Republicans, said Sunday that the negotiations have gone too far afield ahead of a March 5 deadline after which 690,000 dreamers in an Obama-era deferred action program could begin to lose their protections from deportation.”