President Trump spent months working on the speech he’ll deliver tonight to a joint session of Congress, making notations on printed documents, sending new paragraphs to his staff to include and developing themes.
The end result was a set of 60-minute remarks that will be ‘optimistic’ in tone, a White House official told DailyMail.com on Tuesday.
‘It reminds everybody what this country should be about,’ the official added.
Assisting Trump with the speech were White House Staff Secretary Rob Porter, National Economic Council head Gary Cohn, Speechwriters Ross Worthington and Vince Haley, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller.
End result of President Trump’s work is a 60-minute remarks that will be ‘optimistic’ in tone, a White House official said
President Trump spent months working on the speech he’ll deliver tonight to a joint session of Congress, making notations on printed documents, sending graphs to his staff to include and developing themes
Cohn played a major role in getting the president’s tax cut across the finish line. Miller is guiding Trump’s immigration policy.
Trump did a walk through of the remarks yesterday in the White House’s Map Room. He’s likely to give the remarks another run through today after he concludes the traditional anchor luncheon.
The off-the-record gathering of network talent is an annual fixture of the State of the Union. The president also plans to meet with average Americans he invited to attend his address and sit in the first lady’s box.
Among them are Cpl Matthew Bradford, a veteran who lost both of his legs after stepping on an IED in Iraq. Shrapnel entered his eyes and blinded him.
The president’s youngest guest, 12-year-old Preston Sharp, is responsible for the placement of more than 40,000 American flags and red carnations on soldiers’ graves.
Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the speech would be ‘about bringing the country together, setting a very optimistic vision’ on ‘Today’ on Tuesday.
Kellyanne Conway told the hosts of ‘Fox & Friends’ that it would be a ‘positive’ speech but went on to harangue Democrats for their rejection of President Trump’s immigration compromise.
‘The question of whether this will be bipartisan, is not a question for the Republicans, it’s a question for the Democrats, who have yet to come to the table with anything except wearing black tonight, saying, “Me too,” and I guess boycotting Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Clinton, and, and others,’ the senior counselor to president said.
Kellyanne Conway told the hosts of ‘Fox & Friends’ that it would be a ‘positive’ speech but went on to harangue Democrats for their rejection of President Trump’s immigration compromise
Protests inside and outside of the U.S. Capitol were top of mind on Tuesday as senior White House officials did the president’s bidding on and off television.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other women aligned with the Democratic Party are wearing black to Trump’s speech this evening in solidarity with victims of sexual harassment, as Conway noted.
At least a dozen Democratic legislators are boycotting the president’s appearance before a joint session of Congress altogether. They will not be present tonight as Trump delivers remarks at 9:10 pm Eastern in the House chamber.
More than two dozen Democratic lawmakers will be bringing Dreamers with them to Trump’s address to highlight their desire to provide illegal youth with amnesty.
Liberal celebrities such as Mark Ruffalo, John Leguizamo, and Michael Moore rallied against Trump on Monday in New York City at an alternative event with progressive activists that organizers called ‘The People’s State of the Union.
‘The need to remove him — and also any Democrat who is in the way of removing him — that is, at this point, a moral imperative for each and every one of us,’ Moore declared from the stage.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said tonight’s State of the Union speech would be ‘about bringing the country together, setting a very optimistic vision’
President Donald Trump will take a stride in the direction of ‘bipartisanship’ in his State of the Union address, the White House has said, delivering remarks that are ‘optimistic’ and ‘unifying.’ He’s seen here in February of 2017 giving his first address to a joint session of Congress as president
Comparing Trump to the party of Adolf Hitler, Leguizamo said: ‘The Nazi Party had an approval rating of 37 back in the day, so don’t feel complacent about the Trump administration’s dismal approval ratings right now.’
Sanders said Tuesday morning on Fox & Friends that the progressives’ message is not only ‘out-of-touch’ but ‘one of negativity and frankly I think a little bit of delusion’ as she ran down a list of President Trump’s first year accomplishments, which included the decimation of ISIS and his appointment of conservative judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.
‘This has been a historic year by any way you look at it,’ she said. ‘We’re really excited about talking about our successes of the first year, but even more so what we are going to accomplish over the next seven years.’
Taking a slap at Trump’s opponent in the 2016 presidential election, Sanders said ‘if Americans cared about what celebrities thought, then Hillary Clinton would be president.’
‘Americans wanted somebody to come in and shake up and change Washington, and that’s exactly what President Trump did, and that’s exactly why he’s been an incredible president, and why we’ve had such a successful first year,’ she added.
First lady Melania Trump is expected to reemerge tonight at the State of the Union address and host special guests of the president’s along with her
Sanders said she ‘almost’ feels sorry for the Trump-bashing Hollywood stars.
‘They’re so focused on hating this president that they’re missing all of the great things that are happening in this country, and I think that’s really sad for them, and I think they’re missing an opportunity to actually bring people together, and show a better side of themselves,’ Sanders said.
‘Instead, I think thy look small…it’s impacting them in a much more negative way than certainly it is impacting the president, cause he’s doing great, he’s in great spirits, the country’s doing great and we’re really excited about it.’
On the same program earlier in the morning Conway had refused to call Clinton, a former secretary of state and U.S. Senator, by her name.
‘It’s his conservative agenda that prevailed, and the other person, whose name I never say on TV anymore, that agenda failed,’ Conway boasted.
The senior White House official had been asked about Democrats bringing Dreamers as their dates to Trump’s speech.
‘That’s wonderful. I hope that they’ll thank the president for actually trying to find a resolution on this, because President Obama didn’t, that’s for sure,’ she stated.
While Clinton’s name did not leave her lips, Conway was more than happy to talk about Pelosi, who yesterday said ‘the tax bill is really the dark cloud that hangs over the capital’ at a Washington Post summit that both women spoke at.
‘I just sent her another shipment of vitamins. I want her to be leader of the Democratic Party and the non-speaker for as long as she can,’ Conway snarked. ‘She’s going to be the biggest feature, I think, in ads coming this fall, too, because Republicans will say, look at her.’
Conway, a former pollster, said ‘Democrats are going to run on divided government, checks and balances’ in 2018. ‘It’s not going to work, because a unified government got you your tax cut,’ she asserted.
The White House said Friday during a briefing on Trump’s remarks that the president would emphasize ‘bipartisanship’ in his progress report, delivering remarks that are ‘unifying’ this evening.
Trump’s speech will touch on immigration, infrastructure and national security, the White House said, in addition to traditional topics like jobs and the economy and will center on ‘Building a safe, strong and proud America.’
‘You can expect the President will be speaking from the heart. It will be a speech that resonates with our American values, and unites us with patriotism, and also unites us with the greatly expanded opportunities that is lifting up all Americans,’ a senior official stated.
Echoing that message, Sanders told Fox on Tuesday, ‘I think you’re going to see the heart of the president tonight. I think you’re going to hear a very optimistic message.
‘This is a person who rises to the occasion…Again he has a great story to tell. There have been a lot of things that the media has tried to distract from the successes of the president, but tonight this is his stage, and his time to talk directly to the American people, and I think you’re going to see a lot of the president himself come through, in his words, in the State of the Union tonight,’ she said.
Speaking for himself on Monday, Trump assessed: ‘It’s a big speech, an important speech, we covered immigration…We’re going to get something done, we hope.
‘It’s got to be bipartisan because the Republicans really don’t have the votes to get it done in any other way,’ he said of immigration.
The Tuesday evening address to Congress will bring together lawmakers, Supreme Court justices and the president’s family.
All of Trump’s children, with the exception or Barron, his youngest, will be present for the speech, the White House said Monday, and so will the first lady.
The list of presidential guests sitting alongside Melania Trump in her box include first responders, service members and small business owners and employees who have benefited from the president’s tax cut.
Conway told Fox on Tuesday: ‘The first lady’s put together a wonderful group of guests tonight.’
‘Some of these individuals’ stories are heroic, some are patriotic, others are tragic,’ Sanders said at her Monday briefing. ‘But all of them represent the unbreakable American spirit, and will inspire our nation to continue growing stronger, prouder, and more prosperous.’
Trump has an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent coming as his guest in a nod to his priorities. The parents of two young girls, Nisa Mickens and Kayla Cuevas, who were murdered by MS-13, will also be in attendance.
Trump shakes hands with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan after delivering his first address to a joint session of Congress from the floor of the House of Representatives last year
Tonight, Trump will talk about an immigration plan he presented Congress to provide 1.8 million Dreamers who came to the U.S. as children with a pathway to citizenship in a giveaway to Democrats.
In exchange, Trump wants Congress to appropriate $25 million for his wall, and restrict visa access to approved applicants’ nuclear family. The president also wants Congress to do away with the visa lottery system in the plan that has rankled liberals and conservatives.
While it is a focal point of the speech, Trump is also expected to spend time outlining a $1 trillion infrastructure proposal that relies heavily on private investment.
The federal government would put a mere $200 billion toward the plan, that could reach as high as $1.7 trillion.
He could also talk about his plans to continue the operation of the prison in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay.
A senior official could not say if Gitmo would come up in Trump’s speech after a report said the president would sign a executive order mandating the prison for enemy combatants stay open.
The official did say Trump was ‘going to talk about rebuilding our military, returning to the policy of peace through strength, returning to clarity about our friends and our adversaries, and his efforts to defeating terrorists around the world.’
Trump will also be boosting his tax plan in the speech and the record highs of the stock market.
‘There is already a great deal of optimism among Americans about the year ahead. And this year, I think people will see that they had great reason to be optimistic, in terms of the accomplishments and results of the last year,’ the official said Friday.
Trump is expected to open his arms to Democrats in the speech like Chuck Schumer who he’s seen here with in September at the White House. The pair more recently has been feuding
At the swearing in of his new Health and Human Services secretary on Monday, Trump said, ‘We worked on it hard, covered a lot of territory, including our great success with the markets and with the tax cut.
‘It’s going to be I think a very important speech on trade, the world has taken advantage of us on trade for many years, and as you probably noticed we’re stopping that, and we’re stopping it cold and we have to, we have to have reciprocal trade. It’s not a one-way deal anymore, Trump stated.
The president confirmed that the speech would also hit on DACA, the Obama-era program that protected illegal immigrant youth.
‘So we have a lot of things to discuss and we’ll be discussing them, and I hope you enjoy it. Thank you very much. See you tomorrow night,’ the president said.
At her briefing on Monday afternoon Sanders said she didn’t want to spoil the speech by giving too many details away.
‘It will obviously be must-watch TV,’ the Trump spokeswoman stated.
Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy will be giving the official Democratic response to the president’s speech. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders will also offer a response via video.