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Donald Trump to give Oval Office address on border wall – live updates
Trump claims crisis at the border in Oval Office speech – live updates
(35 minutes later)
Talking Points Memo reports that Senate Republicans are increasingly open for Trump to declare a national emergency to build a wall. It’s not because they think it would work but simply because it end the shutdown even if Trump’s action gets overturned in the courts.
Bernie Sanders is giving his own personal response to Trump and is not impressed.
Some Senate Rs want @realDonaldTrump to declare an emergency on the border to give them a way out of the shutdown. The subtext: it gives them an out, even if it doesn't hold up in the courts. https://t.co/x3lGjxDWlp
Sanders: "It gives me no pleasure to tell you what most of you already know. President Trump lies all of the time – and in his remarks tonight, and in recent weeks regarding immigration and the wall, he continues to lie." https://t.co/4NXH0dDQQq
As we wait for the speech to start, newly-elected Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw has tweeted his thoughts about the showdown.
RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel has just weighed in to praise Trump in statement:
Tonight, the President will be speaking on border security. Some things to keep in mind:1) The problems on the border need to be addressed. 400,000 illegal aliens being apprehended per year while crossing an open border is completely unsustainable.
“Tonight, Americans saw their president fighting for a solution to fund our government while protecting American citizens, versus the approach of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer which is to resist, resist, resist at all costs,” said Chairwoman McDaniel. “It wasn’t always this way. President Trump is simply asking Democrats to support border security policies they all supported just a few short years ago. It’s time for Democrats to put down their swords and work with President Trump.”
We are 20 minutes away from President Donald Trump addressing the nation about his border wall and the government shutdown. We’ll be following the speech, the response and the reaction here.
One-time Trump critic and current Trump ally Lindsay Graham praises the speech on Fox News.
We’re pausing this blog for now. We’ll be back later this evening with live coverage of Trump’s address at 9pm ET. Here’s where things stand:
.@LindseyGrahamSC tells @seanhannity this is the "most presidential" he's seen President Trump.
Donald Trump is not expected to declare a national emergency in his speech from the Oval Office tonight. Here are six things to know beforehand.
The New York Times has a full fact check of Trump’s speech here. So far they have found one false statement and quite a few that need context.
The Democratic response to Trump’s speech will come from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer tonight. After their response, there will be separate responses from both Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ted Lieu.
Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan weighs in and is just as impressed with the remarks tonight as everyone else
Paul Manafort shared Trump polling data with a Russian intelligence asset according to a poorly redacted court filing.
Nobody convinced anybody.
Democrats unveiled gun control legislation on Capitol Hill today.
One of the top Democrats in the House has his own response to the speech on Twitter
Stormy Daniels will be offering her own counter-programming to Trump’s televised address to the nation tonight.
We are not paying a $5 billion ransom note for your medieval 🏰 border wall. And nothing you just said will change that cold, hard reality. Not happening. Get. Over. It.
If you're looking for anything even remotely worth watching tonight at 9pm EST, I will be folding laundry in my underwear for 8 minutes on Instagram live. https://t.co/GhMowscZMP
As the Democratic response ends, a number of observers have the same take on Schumer and Pelosi.
Mike Pence has been a key emissary between the Trump administration and Capitol Hill during the shutdown. However, as the Atlantic reports, just because Pence is vice president doesn’t mean that people think he speaks for Trump. The result is that Pence has been ineffective and is not viewed as a reliable messenger for the White House’s position.
Not sure why I am reminded of this right now. pic.twitter.com/DDdlHYzp3i
According to one veteran House Republican aide, it was almost always a “given” that when former Vice President Joe Biden communicated the White House’s agenda to the Hill, Barack Obama would be quick to follow through. Conversely, when Pence communicates the president’s position, “it ends up being accurate maybe 50 percent of the time.” When a president deals more in “spontaneity” than in specificity, the aide added, legislative talks are bound to break down.
Live look at Chuck and Nancy press conference: pic.twitter.com/PE0rgUEdBm
The Senate is now at 100 members as former Florida governor Rick Scott has been sworn in to represent the Sunshine State on Capitol Hill. Scott delayed taking his oath to serve the final five days of his gubernatorial term. The delay though dropped him three slots in seniority and leaves him the most junior senator in the chamber.
pic.twitter.com/SPXQsde0sM
Rick Scott will be sworn into Senate by VP Pence today at 4pm. Former Florida GOP Governor who defeated Democratic Senator Bill Nelson will be 100th Senator in Senate of 53 Republicans, 45 Democrats and 2 Independents.
Schumer ends by trying to blame the shutdown on Trump, a reverse of the argument offered by the president.
Mitt Romney’s critical op-ed about Donald Trump in the Washington Post has upset a number of his new Republican colleagues.
“So our suggestion is a simple one: Mr. President: re-open the government and we can work to resolve our differences over border security. But end this shutdown now,” said the top Senate Democrat.
Politico reports that Senate Republicans were taken back at Romney’s criticism just before he was sworn in to be Utah’s junior senator.
Schumer starts by emphasizing the Democratic message:
Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, a close Trump ally, dismissed Romney’s op-ed as an “attempted character assassination” and “deeply disappointing,” dubbing Romney a potential “Jeff Flake on steroids” in his own Washington Post op-ed. Most Senate Republicans won’t go that far, but they aren’t particularly happy about how Romney chose to enter office.
My fellow Americans, we address you tonight for one reason only: the President of the United States – having failed to get Mexico to pay for his ineffective, unnecessary border wall, and unable to convince the Congress or the American people to foot the bill – has shut down the government.
“Everybody’s got their strategy and their tactic. Mine is going to be to try and help the president and our country be successful. Mitt’s got a different take,” Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a fellow freshman, said. “I haven’t talked to anybody that’s encouraged by” his approach.
Pelosi ends her remarks by saying:
“The timing was kind of curious,” said new Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, who said Romney’s gravitas as a former GOP presidential nominee gives everything he says extra weight. “I wouldn’t have advised him to do it right now.”
The fact is: the women and children at the border are not a security threat, they are a humanitarian challenge – a challenge that President Trump’s own cruel and counterproductive policies have only deepened. And the fact is: President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.
Billionaire Tom Steyer “will make an announcement concerning his political plans for 2019 and beyond” in Iowa tomorrow.
Pelosi starts by saying: “Much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice.”
Steyer who has been perhaps the largest single donor to progressive political causes in recent years has been mulling a presidential campaign.
NBC’s Katy Tur, the author of the best-selling book Unbelievable, about the Trump campaign, has this analysis:
Possible 2020 presidential candidate Tom Steyer makes an announcement about an announcement. He'll be in Iowa tomorrow. #iacaucus pic.twitter.com/i2uAPDs0KR
Trump has gone full circle to his 2015 opening campaign speech. The wall is needed because immigrants are violent criminals and drug dealers who are invading the country to hurt you.
Bernie Sanders will give his own response to the State of the Union after Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer do so tonight.
Maggie Haberman from the New York Times has some initial analysis
Bernie doing his own response tonight pic.twitter.com/ap2d5LCJgL
I see the president’s face but I hear Stephen Miller’s voice.
The Washington Post reports that Trump is not expected to declare a national emergency in his speech tonight. There had been speculation that Trump would attempt to do so in a desperate attempt to force wall construction without congressional authorization.
Trump is now sharing a number of stories of gruesome crimes committed by undocumented immigrants inside the United States.
And a senior White House official with knowledge of the speech said the plan is not to call for a national emergency but to further build a public case for the wall.
Trump now takes a different tone:
“It will not be that drastically different than what the president has said so far, but it’s to a bigger and different audience,” said the official, who requested anonymity to share plans that have not been made public.
Why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside but because they love the people on the inside.
Trump to make public case for border wall but not expected to declare emergency in Oval Office address https://t.co/Itw2plhrmL
A new court filing by Paul Manafort failed to redact key information and revealed that he shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, who is believed to be a Russian intelligence agent.
The redactions were in a court filing in which Manafort blamed ill health for any inconsistent statements that he made to federal prosecutors and not a deliberate effort to obfuscate.
Manafort accused by Mueller of sharing 2016 polling data with Russian linked to Moscow intelligence
Paul Manafort shared 2016 polling data with employee believed to be Russian intelligence, according to court filing https://t.co/1W8DD0dZej
Alright folks, that’s it from Sabrina ... I’m now signing off and handing over the keys to my trusted colleague Ben Jacobs, who will take you right up to Trump’s televised address and break down everything in between.
Stay tuned!
As the president prepares to declare a ‘crisis’ along the US-Mexico border, his 2020 re-election campaign is giving us a preview of what’s in store ... and raising money off of it in the process.
An email from Trump to supporters reads: “I want to make one thing clear to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: Your safety is not a political game or a negotiation tactic!”
It then goes on to ask for donations and emphasizes the need to raise $500,000 in one day for what is billed as the ‘Official Secure the Border Fund’. (Spoiler: It’s really just the re-elect Donald Trump fund.)
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo meanwhile said he has seen Trump’s prepared remarks and expects the president to make “a lot of news”. It almost seems likes this entire spectacle is designed to take over the news cycle.
This seems a more apt take of what’s really going on:
There are numerous examples of presidential addresses made to calm a frightened public. This will be the first to frighten a calm public.
