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State of the Union: Trump to deliver second address of presidency – live
State of the Union: Trump attacks Russia investigation in address – live updates
(35 minutes later)
As he stands before the House chamber, enjoying the applause, Trump’s tie is noticeably askew, which is raising concern.
Trump now urges the building of a wall on the southern border, which he emphasizes will be a “smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier.”
FIX THE TIE. FIX THE TIE.
In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall -- but the proper wall never got built. I will get it built.
The state of the president's tie is askew.
This is a smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier -- not just a simple concrete wall. It will be deployed in the areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need, and as these agents will tell you, where walls go up, illegal crossings go way down.
Trump now shakes hands with Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, who will be sitting behind him as he stands at the dais and prepares to deliver the speech
Trump takes a shot at those on the left of the Democratic Party who have called for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
The House Sergeant at Arms has just announced Trump’s entrance into the chamber as he shakes hands with members who have staked out seats for hours to grab a picture and a few seconds on national television with him.
We will always support the brave men and women of Law Enforcement -- and I pledge to you tonight that we will never abolish our heroes from ICE.
First Lady Melania Trump has entered the House Chamber now to loud applause. CNN reports this is her first public appearance since December 27, 2018.
The pledge comes after an extended tribute to Elvin Hernandez, an Hispanic-American ICE officer who fights sex trafficking. Per Trump, “Thanks to his work and that of his colleagues, more than 300 women and girls have been rescued from horror and more than 1,500 sadistic traffickers have been put behind bars in the last year.”
As part of preparations for the summit that Trump is expected to announce tonight, an American diplomat is flying to Pyongyang to work out final details.
Trump gave one interesting ad lib in talking about immigration tonight adding that he wants legal immigrants “in the largest numbers ever.”
State Dept Special Representative to North Korea, Steve Biegun, is heading to Pyongyang to solidify details of the summit, including the city where it will take place. He will also press for his NK counterpart to attend a series of working level meetings bet’n now and the summit.
.@realDonaldTrump: “I want people to come into our country, in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.” “In the largest numbers ever” was ad libbed, not in prepared remarks.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce a second summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un tonight at the end of the month. It is reportedly likely to be held in Da Nang, Vietnam.
Strangest line of the night: Trump saying he wants legal immigrants coming into the country in “the largest numbers ever.” That directly contradicts his claimed policy. Stephen Miller did not write that line!
Sources tell Fox News President Trump is expected to announce tonight that his summit with Kim will be Feb. 27-28 in Vietnam. Sources have told Fox News the most likely location is Da Nang, which hosted the APEC conference in 2017, per @johnrobertsFox
Illegal immigration is now being painted as a populist issue by Trump:
Rick Perry, the Secretary of Energy, will be the designated survivor tonight. In case of a catastrophic disaster, he will not be present at the Capitol to ensure that someone in the presidential line of succession will survive.
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.
Perry is a former Texas governor who mounted unsuccessful presidential bids in 2012 and 2016.
Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration -- reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools and hospitals that are so crowded you can’t get in, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry is the designated survivor tonight for President Trump's second State of the Union address, @NoahGrayCNN and @betsy_klein report
Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate -- it is actually very cruel.
Trump is yet again emphasizing the need for wall and a crackdown on illegal immigration in an excerpt from his speech released by the White House
Trump implores Congress to act on border security “out of love.”
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s WORKING CLASS and America’s POLITICAL CLASS than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.
Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.
Trump also is using much of the traditional boilerplate that presidents from both parties use in State of the Union addresses.
Trump now warns of caravans of illegal immigrants approaching the southern border and claims Mexico is sending them in buses. Groans can be heard in the chamber.
The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican Agenda or a Democrat Agenda. It is the agenda of the American People.
Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection.
In the 20th century, America saved freedom, transformed science, and redefined the middle class standard of living for the entire world to see. Now, we must step boldly and bravely into the next chapter of this Great American Adventure, and we must create a new standard of living for the 21st century.
Trump now addresses the coming government funding deadline for the first time
Together, we can break decades of political stalemate. We can bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions, and unlock the extraordinary promise of America’s future. The decision is ours to make.
The Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our Government, protect our homeland, and secure our southern border.
Steve King, the Iowa Republican who lost his committee assignments after asking when the term “White Supremacist” became offensive in the latest of a series of offensive and racially charged comments over two decades in politics, has his own interesting State of the Union guest tonight.
Trump goes on to hail the First Step Act
Having only one ticket, I invited one of two guests for the State of the Union tonight, #sotu Lynnette Hardaway & Rochelle Richardson, otherwise know as Diamond & Silk. Diamond won the coin toss. Both will be my guest speakers at COS in the morning. pic.twitter.com/bCutypAOoJ
This legislation reformed sentencing laws that have wrongly and disproportionately harmed the African-American community. The First Step Act gives non-violent offenders the chance to re-enter society as productive, law-abiding citizens. Now, States across the country are following our lead. America is a Nation that believes in redemption.
The Washington Post reports that embattled Virginia governor Ralph Northam is considering giving up his party affiliation as calls for him to resign come from all corners.
Trump is now spending a lengthy section of his speech talking the First Step Bill, the successful bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation which was passed last year.
Northam has faced national opprobrium since a racist picture from his medical school yearbook emerged showing a man in blackface and a man in Ku Klux Klan hood. Northam has denied being the man in the picture but admitted to wearing blackface in a Michael Jackson dance party in 1984.
He’s now talking about Alice Johnson, a first time non-violent drug offender who was sentenced to life in prison. Her case came to his attention due to lobbying from Kim Kardashian West and Trump commuted her sentence last year.
🚨Ralph Northam has considered leaving the Democratic Party and governing as an independent https://t.co/aquxT46b1U
Trump now praises a variety of bipartisan legislation that passed in the last Congress including the farm bill, legislation to deal with the opioid crisis and to refigure the VA.
Tonight Xavier Becerra will be delivering the Democrats’ Spanish language response to President Trump’s State of the Union— and he’s had plenty of practice. The California Attorney General has challenged the president’s policies through more than 100 legal actions over the past two years and has plans to use his time to push back against the Administration’s claims. That’s a large part of why the party selected him for the role.
After hailing his economic successes , Trump attacks “ridiculous partisan investigations” as an obstacle, a pointed reference to Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian interference in 2016 election. The line sparked a distinct eye roll from Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Xavier Becerra embodies the promise of America,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement released with the announcement. “Throughout his career and most recently as the first Latino to serve as state attorney general in California history, he has kept that promise alive for millions of children and families across the nation by protecting access to affordable health care and defending the dignity of everyone in our country from the Trump administration’s harmful and divisive attacks. His moral and vigilant leadership on behalf of hardworking families is a critical marker for all who believe that our country’s best days are still ahead of us”.
the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations.
During his reelection campaign last year, Becerra put his fight against the Trump Administration front and center, highlighting the 45 lawsuits that included contesting the President’s border wall as a violation of environmental laws, getting injunctions that protected reproductive rights under the Affordable Care Act, and litigation arguing against the addition of a census question on citizenship.
If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way!
“These aren’t lawsuits that affect just a small community or part of California. Most of these lawsuits impact the entire state, plus people outside” he told The New York Times, adding having a response in Spanish is critical to ensuring non-English speaking Americans feel like they count. “It’s an opportunity for everyone in America to hear what the state of the union is and to hear the other side”.
We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad.
Becerra has had many firsts in his life. He was the first Latino to serve as Attorney General in the state, appointed by then-governor Jerry Brown to replace Kamala Harris’s spot after she was elected to the U.S. Senate. He was the first member of his family to attend college, earning undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford. The 12-term former congressman was also the first Latino to serve on the House Ways and Means committee.
Trump pronounces “the state of our union is strong” to chants of USA, USA in the chamber.
Becerra previously delivered then Spanish language response to the State of the Union in 2007. Then, he called for key progressive policies including healthcare and immigration reform, and minimum wage increases in Bush’s first State of the Union after Nancy Pelosi became Speaker for the first time.
Trump adds “that sounds so good.”
It has been less than two months since Maria Mendoza-Sanchez was granted reentry into the US following her deportation a year and a half ago — and tonight she will be seated in the audience as the president gives his State of the Union address. The guest of California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Mendoza-Sanchez is one of many partisan plus-one’s invited by Democrats, who will be in attendance to serve as a rebuttal to Trump’s immigration rhetoric.
“Maria is a beloved nurse, neighbor and friend in the East Bay. She is a living example of the incalculable contributions that immigrants make to our communities every single day,” Congresswoman Lee said in a statement released with the announcement.
Trump is expected to double down on calls for support for his border wall, and his claims that its construction is the most pressing national priorities. But Mendoza-Sanchez’s story, recently recounted in the San Francisco Chronicle, shows the other side of the immigration reform debate and highlights how harsher policies against immigrants can tear families and communities apart.
“In the past, [Trump] has used public appearances like this to demonize immigrants, spread misinformation and deceive the American people,” Lee wrote in an email to supporters today. “But we all know that real people — neighbors, friends and classmates — have suffered because of the actions of the Trump Administration. That’s why I will be bringing Oakland resident Maria Mendoza-Sanchez as my guest to the State of the Union tonight”.
As a teenager, Mendoza-Sanchez left her home in Mexico and hiked across the US border. She cleaned houses, sold fruit, and slept only a few hours each night, working her way through city college and into a nursing program to fulfil her dreams of becoming a nurse. Before she was deported in 2017 — the result of harsher penalties for undocumented immigrants issued by the Trump Administration — her dreams had come true. All that was missing was a visa, which had been struggling to get for roughly 15 years.
For two years before she was deported, Mendoza-Sanchez was a nurse in the oncology department at a public hospital in Northern California. But, she was ineligible to apply for a visa because of how she originally came into the US.
She spent more than a year away from her three daughters, the job she had worked so hard to get, and the community her family called home. Her husband is still separated from the family, and had to stay behind in Mexico. But Mendoza-Sanchez was one out of 65,000 who was lucky enough to be picked for a visa lottery. Her H-1B work visa, sponsored by her employer, Alameda Health Services, will give her the chance to return to nursing in the US for the next three years, with the potential for an additional three if granted an extension.
“I was thrilled that Maria was able to return home – but I haven’t forgotten the many families across the East Bay who remain in limbo,” Lee wrote. “I hope that Maria’s attendance at the State of the Union will highlight the urgency around comprehensive immigration reform. Every day that we delay is another day that families suffer needlessly. Rest assured that I will keep fighting for immigration policies that treat every person with dignity, respect and compassion”.
Along with Mendoza-Sanchez, ex-Trump National Golf Club employee Victorina Morales, an undocumented worker from Guatemala who was fired from the club after revealing her citizenship status in an interview with The New York Times, will also be in attendance. She was invited by Democratic New Jersey Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman.
Excerpts of the Democratic response from former Georgia state legislator Stacey Abrams have just released. Abrams, who lost the 2018 governor’s race in the Peach State and is being heavily recruited to run for Senate in 2020, attacks Trump and blames him for the 35-day partial government shutdown.
Just a few weeks ago, I joined volunteers to distribute meals to furloughed federal workers. They waited in line for a box of food and a sliver of hope since they hadn’t received a paycheck in weeks.
Making their livelihoods a pawn for political games is a disgrace.
The shutdown was a stunt engineered by the President of the United States, one that defied every tenet of fairness and abandoned not just our people - but our values.
The Washington Post reports that in registering for the Texas bar, Elizabeth Warren wrote that her race was “American Indian.” She told the Post in an interview “I can’t go back. But I am sorry for furthering confusion on tribal sovereignty and tribal citizenship and harm that resulted.”
Warren’s ethnic heritage has long been a partisan trip line. The Massachusetts Democrat was attacked in 2012 Senate race for representing herself as a Native American in order to take advantage of affirmative action. Warren insisted that she relied on family stories but a prominent Massachusetts right wing radio host nicknamed her “Fauxcahontas” to emphasize what he viewed as a lie.
That nickname has since been transmuted by Donald Trump to simply be “Pocahontas” and has been construed as an ethnic slur by some. In an effort to put the issue behind her, Warren released a video that included a DNA test of her heritage. That sparked even more criticism from Native Americans about whether she was attempting to circumvent the tribal citizenship process.
CNN reports that President Donald Trump met with contractors at the White House on Monday to discuss building a border wall.
The meeting comes less than two weeks before the next government funding deadline. Trump has long insisted that he won’t sign a bill to fund the government that doesn’t include wall funding. Democrats won’t support a bill that funds a wall. The resulting impasse led to a five week shutdown in December and January before a temporary compromise was reached.
CNN reports one unique detail from the meeting:
The President is so fixated on building the wall that he told a group of political allies on Monday that he wants to paint a section of current border fencing where it meets the ocean in San Diego, a person familiar with the exchange told CNN’s Jim Acosta. Trump complained he was told by a general that painting that area could harm the environment.
