I have only one question as we (hopefully) near the end of this speech of promises. Will Pres. Trump promise never to lie to us again? That is the promise I would welcome. (But, doubt I would believe any more than I do most of what I have thus far heard.)
1
Trump giving a State of Anything speech , skit or declaration is the height of absurdity . Hard to believe that many are on the edge of their seats about it . As Trump said : Something is going on and we have to find out what it is ! lol
1
Like rubbernecking at a roadside crash, it's easy to focus solely on the ugliness of Trump's moral failings - but we must not neglect our responsibility to track Trump's most dangerous decisions:
- Withdrawal from the Russia-US INF treaty. The Post predicts that "Russia, China and the U.S. will invent more weapons and deploy them in more places, with faster speeds on hair-trigger alerts. Human error, accident or mishap can already touch off a global nuclear catastrophe. If Trump has his way, the chances of that will rise greatly."
- Trump's plan for deploying mercenaries to Afghanistan and possibly Syria with his ally, disgraced Blackwater founder Erik Prince (Betsy DeVos's brother). Mattis and McMasters both protested Prince's proposal, and now they're both gone, so the coast is clear for the CEO whose mercenaries massacred civilians in Baghdad in '07. Prince ran an advert. in December "We Are Coming."
- Trump deregulation dumps cancer-causing poisons in our waterways and removes coal smokestack scrubber requirements. Poisoning water, when clean available water will be the cause of wars in generations to come, is unconscionable and ridiculously shortsighted.
- Declaring an emergency to fund a Wall during a period of falling immigrant crime will take that money from actual emergency response to hurricanes, tornados, and fires.
The list goes on, and so do the daily immoral roadside crashes - but we have to keep track of the REAL state of our union.
4
One thing can be sure. There will be more lies, and uncivilized attacks. Of course, he will not threaten to dissolve the Mexican Congress or shut down the Mexican government.
1
This is defined as the Executive Branch reporting to the Legislative Branch on the state of the union. There is no constitutional directive to have the Judicial Branch present and, truly, they should not be. It is most uncomfortable for the justices to have to decide on the fly, and on national TV, whether or not they should be seen applauding the president's points. Same goes for the military brass gathered there. It's uncomfortable for us, the audience, to have to watch them determining their reactions on camera.
3
Look at the way he handles his businesses. Drives them into the ground, then files bankruptcy and walks away. He sees the presidency as just another of his businesses. Maybe he'll say, "It's been tremendous, best presidency ever, but it's not making me any richer, so I quit. Buh-bye." I bet he'd love to do just that, but there's that indictment thing hanging over his orange head...
3
People are writing about not wanting to view tonight’s State of the Union. While doubtful anything surprising will be revealed in the president’s speech, I think there is some interest in watching our elected representatives in the audience. That could be a more revealing picture of our union’s state.
4
Will he say (to Mike Pence) "Mr. President" or "Mr. Vice-President." The former is correct, since the VP is presiding as president of the Senate. Up to Bill Clinton, the president always said "Mr. President," and the TV anchors solemnly intoned, in a little civics history, "Addressing the vice-president as Mr. President because he serves as president of the Senate." Never knew why, but Bill Clinton switched to "Mr. Vice President," and everyone since has stuck with that, even though it's wrong.
Kind of like Ronald Reagan returning the salutes, which the president never did because he's a civilian and not in uniform. And once he started that, no one dared stop.
Also kind of like the Lord Chancellor no longer walking backwards after he hands the Queen her speech at the state opening of Parliament.
Lets face it. Whether you support or oppose him Trump's State of the Union speech will be entertainment. In fact that's the big problem here. There will be less substance and more political reality TV happening during the speech. This includes invited guests of both sides that really act as pawns in the gotcha points made by both sides. There will be few if no moments where there will be bipartisan applause or agreement as to points made by Trump. Yes democracy oftentimes slows due to opposing forces but in our nation currently government seems to be moving in reverse or not at all.
2
Why in the world should any sane person pollute and damage his or her ears, eyes and brains by watching and listening to Trump?
I don’t need to hear from the “fox watching the henhouse” about how the henhouse and the hens are doing.
11
@Sameer Agreed. I can't stand the sanctimonious sound of his voice or his atrocious grammar. When he comes on the radio, I change the station. I will check the NYT tomorrow to get the highlights...well, more like lowlights. I do want to know the gist of what he says, but I don't need to hear it.
7
“Choosing Greatness? The voting public is thankfully almost there, having resoundingly rejected this Fake President’s odious corporate/plutocratic agenda and corrupt, incompetent, divisive persona in the historic midterms. In 2020 it will complete this task of “Choosing Greatness” by further rejecting these Trumpian/Republican enablers of inexhaustible greed, recapturing both the Presidency and the Senate.
9
Yawn. Boring. “Sad.”
Anti-climatic as the SuperBowl.
Trump has repeatedly proven that his word(s), whether on Twitter or in the SOU, are devoid of truth or meaning.
7
Tonight you can look for (and will surely find) divisive lies and shameless boasts, empty, dishonest boasts, from Trump. That is all he has ever been and ever will be capable of.
Spare yourself the experience.
11
Love the photo. The picture of Dorian Trump. Vain, dour and waiting for any excuse to be obnoxious. Thanks, GOP.
9
Here's my fantasy: instead of standing respectfully and dourly behind Trump, Nancy Pelosi gives him the same treatment he gave Hillary Clinton in that awful debate in 2017--she *prowls* and *looms* and *smirks* over his shoulder, while he tries to focus on his speech.
He has it coming.
11
Gosh, I think every response so far indicates the commenter is not going to watch this stream of nonsense and lies. Hard to blame anyone for tuning out.
5
I don't see any need to tune in to watch Trump's hypocrisy and lies. Calling for unity when he's been the most divisive president since Lincoln is really ridiculous. Claiming he has anything to do with a robust economy is also nonsense, since all of his moves, like the trade war, the worthless tax cut, and worsening of relationships with other nations, have been harmful effects.
Naturally, there's no crisis on the border, with the lowest numbers of illegal immigrants crossing in ages. For certain, even if there were, a wall would do nothing to stop it, because of ladders, tunnels, boats, planes, and explosives.
So Trump will spew a lot of lies off a teleprompter, and tomorrow nothing will have changed. It'd be great if he would actually achieve bipartisan consensus on rebuilding our infrastructure, as he promised, but he can't even manage that, with massive approval of that goal.
7
You watch. That's what I (gratefully) pay you for. Just let me know if anything happened when I check in later.
11
The next SOTU speech I will watch and listen to will be the one that starts with, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.” (See: Gerald R. Ford, 9 August 1974)
17
I hear that Trump has invited some people to his speech. I don't know who they are, but if I look at who he has praised (and not attacked), I assume some or the people on the list are Kim Jung Un, Putin, Duterte from the Phillipines, some of the good people on both sides from Charlottesville, Sisi from Egypt, Bolsonaro from Brazil. Maybe Xi from China, but I forget whether he is a great guy this week or a monster.
He probably would like to invite his buddies from days gone by, but most of them are either in jail, headed to jail, or rattted on him. Sad.
14
I am not going to waste my time listening to this R.I.C.O criminal. Of course, someone else wrote it so it is likely not to be, to quote, Scaramucci, a total "word salad" but nonetheless likely to contain many inaccuracies.
I hope the Democratic response is scathing.
9
I think he is also likely to include an LGBTQ dog whistle when he addresses stopping HIV transmission.
5
More like State of the Russian Federation address...
8
I"d like to know whose agenda the POTUS will be pushing. Lord knows he doesn't understand anything of import himself. Will we be listening to a de facto Pompeo perspective or more frighteningly, Stephen Miller's myopic views? I don't understand why the SOTU address is being given the faintest credibility when it is being delivered by an intellectually impoverished and morally bankrupt individual who is a travesty in the Office.
13
I can't imagine taking seriously anything in Trump's SOTUS. If he follows legitimate science in a plan to stop HIV by 2030, wonderful. But having become a cynic over anything Trump says, I could easily see him using the HIV treatment plan as a weapon to achieve less worthy goals by using it as a bargaining chip.
There are thousands of young children from south America who have been isolated from their parents with little hope of reuniting them. That is a national disgrace, utterly immoral and violates international human rights laws. If he vows to remedy that catastrophe, wonderful but would he follow through?
I'm not sure I can tolerate listening to Trump until others who I respect analyze his speech and give some opinion and context to where it might take our country and the world.
7
I would rather read ex post facto analysis from intelligent people (NYT) than watch that clown speak.
10
Anesthetizing with a little wine is a definite prerequisite.....it makes scraping fingernails on chalkboards tolerable sometimes. Like the Trump State of the Union.
I think I’ll watch mostly to see Nancy Pelosi instead of Paul Ryan.
10
Nothing he says tonight will really matter. It’s all scripted for him; I doubt he’ll even internalize what he’s saying. What he says and does tomorrow, what he tweets tomorrow, are what will tell the tale. These events are meaningless. He communicates his real intentions via tweet, where no one can put the bumpers around him.
9
Why bother watching? Empty words, lies, platitudes and hubris from an illegitimate president. Hard pass.
9
Don't watch. That's the only thing the guy wants. Don't give it to him.
13
Please provide analysis by all means, but I wish you would spare us your tiresome "fact checks," which most of the time are petty nitpicks of normal political hyperboles which we readers already know how to discount.
I don't think the State of The Union address has become obsolete at all. The Trump administration has exposed division in the populace, even to the point of aggravating that division. But division has been around for quite awhile, notably in Nixon's and Reagan's administrations. The speech and response format have at times been very divisive, even hostile but that is not the fault of the process, it is due to the speakers, mainly the President who holds the podium. We should keep the presentation and address the divisiveness, not toss out the forum entirely.
Perhaps tonight's speech will repeat last year's "largely measured tones and...a call for common purpose," but I wouldn't count on it. I suspect President Trump will make the usual pleas for "bipartisanship and compromise," but for Republicans in general, and President Trump in particular, such compromises always mean "do exactly what I want." There never is "compromise."
However, given the rancor over the shutdown as well as Mr. Trump's recent vicious characterizations of Speaker Pelosi as actually WANTING human trafficking, drugs, and open borders, I fully expect the President to take not-so-veiled swipes at Democrats. Like usual, he will again mischaracterize Democratic positions, engaging his favorite arsenal of rhetorical fallacies: straw man arguments, ad hominem attacks, appeals to fear, half-truths, and, of course, outright lies.
The state of our union is terrible, and no salesman in the White House will get us to buy the pablum he's hawking.
12
Trump will make calls for unity in a polarized age, and blah blah blah The barking of a dog, pardon me dogs, has far more meaning than any calls this liar might make. If Trump has done anything it has been to destroy any sense of unity for anything including fighting climate change, controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, the unity of friends around the world and any possibility of compromise or even talking to each other. He gives new meaning to the word liar by which in Wikipedia his picture will appear. My wife asked me if I wanted to copy the State of the Union Address. I would not sully my DVD.
10
Mouth-breathing.
And yes, lies.
Lotsa lies.
13
"...where reporters will also be providing real-time fact-checking and analysis."
I'm not saying Trump is fact-challenged, but I hope you have adequate staffing.
12
Aww, you can go ahead and say Trump is fact-challenged. We're all aware he lies all the time, this isn't Faux News.
6
In his state of disunion address, Trump will explain that unity will come when you do what he wants.
He’ll then promise to crack the whip on abortion and double down on his vanity wall, all with the threat of imminent war with Iran in the background....
11
If you want to watch Stacey Abrams but don't want to watch the maniac, ResistBot will text you as soon as the president finishes speaking. Just text sotu to 50409.
9
I didn't watch the super bowl, nor will I watch this: the stupid bowl.
18
As if Trump wrote the speech. I'd be surprised if he even knows what's in it.
The only part worth watching will be Speaker Pelosi's face to see if she can repress her combination of disdain and amusement.
13
The State of the Union:
The President: Talking Point. Talking Point. Rabble Rousing. Talking Point so Obscured by Untruth as to be Outrageous. Overstatement Bordering Lie and Outright Lies on Immigration. Pandering. Bragging and Braggadocio. Yada Yada Yada - but in a really loud voice.
GOP: Clapping Interrupted by Rising to Feet.
Speaker: Stonefaced
Democrats: Stonefaced Interrupted by Snide Asides.
Part of me says responsible people try to be informed about our government, and part of me says I have seen it before so why bother. If ever there was a time I envied Rip Van Winkle, it would be now. Can you wake me up when sanity returns?
12
@Cathy
Your comment made be smile. Very accurate description. Thanks.
Bah, humbug!! Not gonna watch another one of his reality horror show. There’s no substance there. It’s just another day’s con.
8
"Last year’s speech clocked in at 80 minutes, the longest since President Bill Clinton’s in 2000"
The shortest State of the Union Address- less than 29 minutes – was given in 1966 by President Richard Nixon. President Trump can beat this record today and make all of us happy. The American public has poor expectation of this president and they are not going to be disappointed today
17
What to watch for?! As if there is anything we don’t already know about how this administration operates.
At the end of the night the pundits can debate until their blue in the face. While our water is poisoned, internment camps are built on the southern border, nuclear arms races resumed, corruption everywhere you turn,etc.
42
I haven't watched a State the Union address for 40 years. Random noise and zero information content. I don't care who is in the White House. Watch what they do not what they say.
14
"What to watch for?"....much ado about nothing, just more smoke and mirrors.
18
Please stop. “What to watch for?” This is not a football game. We all know that teleprompter Trump is not the real Trump, so do your readers a favor a ditch the pretense.
23
We're so worried about the caravans we came to Canada for a couple of days just to feel safe.
What if the Canadians developed delusions of caravans and kept us out? But I think they're too nice (and sane) for that.
14
Who even watches the SOTU? CPAN? Wow, you have to be over 100 years old to still be watching cable "television."
3
@Daniel
I guess you've got to be under 10 years old to misspell "CSPAN".
4
Will he make fun of disabled people?
Will he brag about being a sexual predator?
Will he say there are good people who are Nazis and KKK members?
Will he encourage child abuse at our borders?
Will he disparage Gold Star families?
Will he insult war heroes?
Will he brag about giving the environment to the fossil fuel industry?
Will he insult America's allies?
Will he thank all his republican colleagues for denying climate change?
That's the true State of the Union.
MAGA!
45
Ugh!
Who will tune in to hear more lies and compete drivel?
11
How ‘bout we just don’t watch?
24
I will not be watching our slow-reading president and his contorted hand gestures. I will be watching something intellectual like Herbie Goes Bananas.
18
The first time I saw a glimmer of Trump's constituency was in the 2008 GOP convention's rousing support for Sarah Palin. At the time I called it the 'narcissistic mediocrity caucus' and it hasn't changed much since then. It's made up largely of disappointed white folks; former football stars and cheerleaders who peaked in high school and saw in Palin the glorification of their teen aspirations. They are the political equivalent of Fantasy Football, but with real votes for real candidates offering them an unearned do over. -And this is what makes them as dangerous as Hitler's misfits. These grifters are potent aspirational figures for desperately deluded half wits. We dismiss their rancor at our peril.
48
I agree and what scary is that there is a lot of them!
7
Ugh. My day has already been spoiled by hearing Kellyanne Conway's high speed obfuscatory answers to questions on public radio this morning.
24
@Audie The woman has learned that if she doesn't stop talking, she doesn't have to answer any real questions. How does she live in the same house with a husband who, at least, claims he is against Trump's policies and behaviors? I find Kellyanne very peculiar.
18
I found Our President's "Mr. Kellyanne" insult very revealing. Does anyone else remember that it was her waist, and not Mrs. Trump's, he clenched in the election-night victory post?
1
The state of the union speech is all spectacle and theater. The only thing missing is the red carpet. No one will remember what was said a week from today. Nancy Pelosi has the toughest job of all. While sitting directly behind the president, she must keep a straight face throughout the address. With Trump, that isn't easy.
48
Trump is only the President of the people that voted for him; the rest of us do not matter to him. Get ready for two years of hate a division. Ray Sipe
29
I welcome a victim of bullying at the address. But a victim who is bullied because his name is Trump? Truly weird.
7
I'm tired of Trump's self-aggrandizing bigoted babbling. Everyone knows what contrived garbage comes out of his mouth whenever his lips move.
I'm interested in the rebuttal portion.
Trump is a fraud. Any other country in the free world would have booted him out of office for shutting down the government alone.
THe former "Dean" of Trump "University" should never have even been endorsed by his pack of GOP toadies in the first place. But they endorsed him, and it's a national disgrace.
33
Is Donald Trump going to call anyone “horseface” or call neo-Nazis “very fine people” or make fun of a disabled person when he calls for unity? Just wondering.
38
I won't watch but I'll be fighting the part of me that wants to tune in just to see Nancy Pelosi trying to keep a straight face. If I was her, I'd probably get a raging case of the church giggles.
27
Here's what I expect to hear:
We are being attacked at the southern border. Scary, scary people. Drug dealers, gangs, murdering rapists, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and Casper the Ghost. All of them are coming for America. Also, there will be attacks on the Democrats and on Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. Did I leave anything out?
26
@Mark
Don't forget that "Chuck and Nancy" were responsible for the shutdown.
8
Nope, you pretty much got it all
4
@Mark Trump will also claim he had the biggest inauguration crowd ever, that he won in a landslide, that he's done more than any president ever, and Mrs. Clinton is responsible for all bad things in the world.
5
Wait, let me try.
Lies, blamecasting, lies, delusional boasts, lies, victimhood claims, lies, and...lies.
54
Yeah, with all due respect, there is nothing to watch for...
It will be the same old rambling nonsense and potpourri of lies and blame.
It’s not like I’m going to turn on the TV and he is suddenly going to be someone competent or intelligent.
39
I can't stand to look at Trump. I can't stand to hear his voice or listen to his lies. I'll read about his speech in the NYT.
86
What to watch for? Is that a trick question? Really? Like we don’t know he’s going lie his teeth off and sprinkle in some casual racism here or there? I think I’d rather watch paint dry.
54
@Faisal
I'll be watching bread turn into toast instead, but yeah.
8
I won't be watching. Instead, I'll wait for the highlights on YouTube.
16
Trump's SOTU will be his usual bombast, tinged frequently with his unique brand of vitriol and anger. Speaker Pelosi will be directing eye daggers at him (well deserved) throughout his nonsensical talk. I am planning to get my popcorn ready. How about you?
12
@alank Actually I am grateful we will be out to dinner celebrating a family birthday. I have it recorded but imagine I will either not watch or fast forward. Tomorrow morning may be not soon enough.
1