One night a year, during the State of the Union address, President Trump sets aside his affinity for combat to offer up 90 minutes of stand-up comity to a national audience.
“The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda,” Trump said, opening his speech on a conventionally presidential note on Tuesday. “It is the agenda of the American people.”
A couple of hours earlier, during a private lunch with network anchors that did not stay private long, Trump called Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, “nasty,” described former Vice President Joseph R Biden Jr. as “dumb,” ripped into Senator John McCain, and derided Senator Elizabeth Warren as “Pocahontas.”
The speech itself, embedded with patriotic language and delivered in a reassuring tone, veered between two moods — combative and conciliatory — reflecting a president at a crossroads ahead of an uncertain 2019.
No national emergency. Yet.
For more than a month, Trump has threatened to invoke a state of emergency along the southern border with Mexico, in an attempt to circumvent Congress, which has refused to give him $5,7 billion for a border wall.
But it was not until this week that Senate Republicans — many of whom vehemently oppose the idea on the grounds that it tramples legislative prerogative — made it clear that diverting funding from other projects for a wall, in the name of a national emergency, was a nonstarter. For the moment, Trump heeded their wishes.
The emergency declaration was not among his demands for increased border security.It was, to a significant degree, an act of political self-protection.
At the weekly Republican Senate lunch held in the Capitol a few hours before Trump’s speech, Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the majority whip, was asked about the likelihood of the president invoking emergency powers. Thune replied by saying he believed that the president would avoid a confrontation with his own party because too many Republicans opposed it — and it would take only four Republican defections to pass a measure opposing the move. Trump would do the right thing, he predicted, because “all you have to do is count to four,” Thune quipped, according to a person in attendance.
Trump suggested that investigations into his conduct posed a threat to national security.
Trump began the night by optimistically playing up “a new opportunity in American politics, if only we have the courage to seize it.”
And he expressed support for a variety of popular initiatives that enjoy widespread popularity among Democrats, including new funding to eradicate AIDS, a campaign to reduce childhood cancers and yet another commitment to try to fix the country’s “crumbling infrastructure.” Then, about 15 minutes into the address, Trump hit on an issue foremost in his consciousness — the looming threat of congressional investigations into his conduct.
First, he offered what amounted to a plea for the new Democratic majority in the House to avoid “ridiculous partisan investigations” and cautioned his enemies not to seek “revenge” against him.
Then came the bluntest of threats to the woman sitting behind him, Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation. It just doesn’t work that way!” he said.
“We must be united at home to defeat our adversaries abroad,” he said.
He attempted to unite divided Republicans.
Already facing a divided Congress, Trump has been rebuked by members of his own party in recent days over his decision to pull troops from Syria and his demands for a border wall. In response, he invoked two issues that have been used to rally divided conservatives for decades — the fights against abortion and socialism.
“There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our nation saw in recent days,” he said, referring to efforts by Democrats in New York and Virginia to loosen restrictions on abortion rights.
In recent days, Republicans on Capitol Hill have been circulating talking points urging them to highlight plans by Democrats, including the freshman Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, to increase taxes on the wealthy.
“Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country,” Trump said. “America was founded on liberty and independence — and not government coercion, domination and control.”
He defended his record on women’s issues.
Trump dedicated several minutes to listing his economic accomplishments on behalf of women as he faced row upon row of seats occupied by Democratic women wearing white, in a visual demonstration of their unprecedented power in a House run by one of their own.
“No one has benefitted more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the newly created jobs last year,” said Trump, who seemed genuinely surprised by the thunderous applause it evoked from women on both sides of the aisle.
“You weren’t supposed to do that,” said the president, who went on to praise the record-breaking election of 117 women to Congress in 2018. That, too, garnered a hearty ovation. He has a long way to go, however.Recent polls show that large majorities of women disapprove of his performance.
As President Trump veered into immigration, partisan tension soared. With 10 days left for Congress to pass a border security package and avert another government shutdown, Trump devoted a significant portion of his speech to making the case for his signature campaign proposal: a wall at the southern border. “This is a smart, strategic, seethrough steel barrier — not just a simple concrete wall,” he said, adding, “Simply put, WALLS WORK and WALLS SAVE LIVES.”
But as Trump raised the time frame to keep the government fully funded, the Democrats tensed and Republicans continued to applaud.
Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, buried her head in her hands.As he detailed a litany of familiar talking points about caravans marching toward the United States, there was a disgruntled round of groans, punctuated by a couple boos as they looked around at each other, shaking their heads.
Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas, whose district includes most of El Paso, was visibly angry after Trump referenced her district and the decrease in crime. She appeared to mouth that it was safe before the wall and after the wall.
The women in white took their bows.
The audience for Trump’s State of the Union address looked like a striking sea of white, with Democratic women — many dressed in white in a nod to the women’s suffragist movement — sitting together. Midway through the president’s speech, they did something completely unexpected: They stood up and cheered.
“No one has benefitted more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the newly created jobs last year,” Trump said, prompting the women to roar their approval. After all, many of them had new jobs, in the House, which they took from men.
