WASHINGTON -- The White House says President Donald Trump will call for optimism and unity in today's State of the Union address, using the moment to attempt a reset after two years of bitter partisanship and deeply personal attacks.
When Trump enters the House chamber for the primetime address to lawmakers and the nation, he will face Democrats emboldened after gaining control of the chamber in the midterm elections and by the recent shutdown fight.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said the president would use his address "to call for an end to the politics of resistance, retribution."
"He's calling for cooperation," she said, adding that Trump will point to examples of where this has happened on his watch. Officials said the president is also expected to highlight infrastructure, trade and prescription drug pricing as areas in which the parties could work together.
Conway pointed to what the White House views as Trump's accomplishments, including deregulation, the Republican tax-cut bill and a strong economy.
"The American people see the results," she said.
But Washington's most recent debate offered few signs of cooperation between Trump and Democrats. Under pressure from conservative backers, Trump refused to sign a government funding bill that did not include money for his long-sought border wall. With hundreds of thousands of Americans missing paychecks, Trump ultimately agreed to reopen the government for three weeks to allow negotiations on border security to continue.
The address was delayed after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., last month withdrew her initial invitation for Trump to deliver the speech Jan. 29. Pelosi rescheduled the address after the five-week shutdown ended and the government reopened.
With the new Feb. 15 funding deadline looming, Trump is expected to use his address to outline his demands, which still include funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. He has raised the possibility of declaring a national emergency to secure wall funding if Congress doesn't act. Advisers have also been reviewing options to secure some funding without making such a declaration.
"You'll hear the State of the Union, and then you'll see what happens right after the State of the Union," Trump told reporters.
The president's address marks the first time he is speaking before a Congress that is not fully under Republican control. Pelosi, who won plaudits from Democrats for her negotiating tactics during the shutdown, will be seated behind the president -- a visual reminder of Trump's political opposition.
In the audience will be several Democrats running to challenge Trump in 2020, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
Another Democratic star, Stacey Abrams, will deliver the party's response to Trump. Abrams narrowly lost her bid in November to become Georgia's first black governor, and party leaders are aggressively recruiting her to run for Senate.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer of New York previewed Democrats' message for countering Trump, declaring Monday, "The No. 1 reason the state of the union has such woes is the president."
"What I expect the president to do is ignore reality and spin his own fiction," Schumer said. "A looming question is just how many falsehoods, distortions and made-up facts will appear in the president's speech."
The dynamic suggests that any attempt to proffer a nod to bipartisanship is likely to be short-lived and viewed as duplicitous by his critics.
Trump "thrives on inflaming, and when he does otherwise, it seems inauthentic and unpersuasive," said Peter Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush.
"I don't imagine, even if he makes an appeal to unity, that it will work," Wehner added. "Even if he hits the right notes and the right appeal, Trump will undo it within days by a Twitter attack against Democrats or the special counsel."
PRESIDENT'S GOALS
While White House officials cautioned that Trump's remarks were still being finalized, the president was expected to use some of his televised address to showcase a growing economy. Despite the shutdown, the U.S. economy added a robust 304,000 jobs in January, marking 100 consecutive months of job growth. That's the longest such period on record.
Trump and his top aides have also hinted that he is likely to use the address to announce a major milestone in the fight against the Islamic State militant group in Syria. Despite the objections of some advisers, Trump announced in December that he was withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria.
However, a Defense Department inspector general report released Monday said the Islamic State "remains a potent force of battle-hardened and well-disciplined fighters that could likely resurge in Syria" absent continued counterterrorism pressure. According to the Pentagon, the group is still able to coordinate offensives and counteroffensives.
Administration officials say the White House has also been weighing several "moonshot" goals for the State of the Union address. One that is expected to be announced is an initiative aimed at ending transmissions of HIV by 2030.
In a background briefing for reporters, a senior Trump administration official said the president will offer an "inspiring vision of American greatness and a policy agenda both parties can rally behind."
"Together we can break decades of political stalemate," Trump is expected to say, according to an excerpt of his prepared remarks released by the White House. "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."
Trump, aides said, will discuss the administration's ongoing trade war with China, which Trump has suggested could be the focus of a potential summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month in Asia. Trump also is tentatively scheduled to hold a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month, possibly in Vietnam.
Trump will offer a "very American, can-do, optimistic approach," said the senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a preview of the address.
POLITICAL MESSAGES
When Trump delivers his address, the left wing of the ascendant House Democrats will have a rare opportunity to confront him. In 2016, Republicans headed for the exits before President Barack Obama had even finished his final address. And in 2009, one famously shouted "You lie!" as Obama addressed Congress on health care.
The new Democrats -- many of them women, and many of them members of minority groups -- are planning to send their own pointed messages to the president with their choices of guests and attire. Many women will wear white -- the color of the women's suffrage movement -- to spotlight issues including reproductive rights and equal pay. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic leader, will be handing out white lapel ribbons to the men.
Members of Congress each get one ticket to take a guest to the State of the Union address; sometimes they invite family members, but more often they use their tickets to make a point.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic upstart from New York, is taking a sexual-assault survivor who last year cornered a Republican senator in an elevator, demanding to know whether he was going to vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh as a Supreme Court justice. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., a chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, is taking a climate change scientist as a guest. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a Somali refugee, will be joined by a Liberian refugee who is threatened with deportation.
"I think the goal here is to really show the tremendous step backward that our country has taken under this president," Jayapal told reporters on a conference call Monday, "and to call out the very specific ways in which he has pushed policies to undermine our climate, undermine immigrants, undermine worker protections and undermine, of course, women's reproductive rights."
Information for this article was contributed by Julie Pace, Zeke Miller, Darlene Superville, Matthew Lee and Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press; by David Nakamura of The Washington Post; and by Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times.
A Section on 02/05/2019