On Feb. 5, 2019 at 9pm EST, President Donald Trump gave the annual State of the Union (SOTU) speech. This speech, a United States tradition, is intended to capture the presidential administration’s view of the current state of the country and plans for the future. While initially planned for Jan. 29, the SOTU speech was delayed a week due to the partial shutdown.
According to the Economist, before his speech, “senior administration staff had confided to hundreds of reporters that Mr. Trump would deliver a bipartisan appeal that would ‘encourage Congress to…adopt a spirit of contribution and compromise.’”
Trump relied on such rhetoric in the beginning of his speech, when he said, “The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or Democratic agenda, it’s the agenda of the American people,” indicating a future of bipartisanship. Furthermore, he mentioned many bipartisan proposals, such as the First Step Act, a bill promoting prison reform, the need for fair drug prices, and the demand for increased infrastructure.
However, he also addressed a multitude of contentious issues, including but not limited to the need for immigration reform at the southern border, trade, healthcare, abortion, and foreign policy.
In a response that reflects the sentiments of many Democrat politicians, 2018 Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams attacked Trump for exacerbating the government shutdown and criticized the manner in which the Trump Administration has addressed gun control issues. Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) also released a response on social media, noting issues such as climate change, Social Security, voter suppression, and income inequality.
In his SOTU speech, President Trump proposed a series of legislative actions, evidently promoting the need for lowering drug prices, increasing infrastructure investment, passing the Reciprocal Trade Act in order to gain more presidential power in placing tariffs, funding the border wall (though he did not hint at plans to declare a national emergency), and criminalizing late-term abortions. While the first two are considered to be bipartisan, the last three are expected to become contentious issues in the upcoming year.
The president also introduced a diverse group of guests to promote his policy, including officers in the famous World War II D-Day operation, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, recently released non-violent drug offenders Alice Walker and Matthew Charles, the family of victims of crimes committed by an undocumented immigrant, and an ICE Special Agent.
At the end of his historically long SOTU, which lasted approximately 1 hour and 22 minutes, he again stressed the need for bipartisanship and unity as the country combats polarizing issues over the upcoming year.
“We must keep America first in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny — that one nation, under God, must be the hope and the promise and the light and the glory among all the nations of the world,” said President Trump.
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Shevani Tewari of Richard Montgomery High School.