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| President Trump says his administration is protecting religious liberty,
making sure veterans are being taken care of, ending the war on clean
coal and working to reduce the price of prescription drugs, rewrite bad
trade deals and permanently fix the nation's infrastructure. |
President Trump appealed for unity in his first
State of the Union speech, declaring a "new American moment" even as
many glum Democrats in the audience sat on their hands and refused to
acknowledge economic gains or calls to honor veterans.
While Trump held firm on his demands
for border security and used the grand setting to tout his first-year
accomplishments, his call for bipartisanship on the thorny immigration
debate met with stonefaced stares from top Democrats such as House
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
"Tonight, I am extending an open hand to work with
members of both parties -- Democrats and Republicans -- to protect our
citizens of every background, color, religion, and creed," he said.
It remains unclear whether Democrats are ready to deal
on immigration, but the issue could hang over a looming Feb. 8 deadline
to pass a new spending bill. With that in mind, Trump used his hour and
20-minute speech to signal a willingness to make bipartisan deals on
second-year-agenda priorities like immigration as well as
infrastructure.
“Tonight, I call upon all of us to set aside our
differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the unity we need
to deliver for the people we were elected to serve,” the president
said.
The president described his recent offer on immigration
as a "fair compromise" for both sides. The White House is pushing a
plan to broaden eligibility for the DACA program – which gives a
reprieve to illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and
which Trump is planning to end absent a legislative solution – in
exchange for border wall funding and other big changes.
"Tonight, I call upon all of us to
set aside our differences, to seek out common ground, and to summon the
unity we need to deliver for the people we were elected to serve."
He described his offer of a path to citizenship for 1.8 million DACA recipients, or DREAMers.
“We presented the Congress with a detailed proposal
that should be supported by both parties as a fair compromise -- one
where nobody gets everything they want, but where our country gets the
critical reforms it needs and must have,” he said.
Even as he pushed for an immigration deal, the
president didn’t stray from messaging aimed at his base. Trump said his
“highest loyalty, my greatest compassion, and my constant concern is for
America's children, America's struggling workers, and America's
forgotten communities.”
“Americans are dreamers too,” he said.
He also called on Congress to "finally close the deadly loopholes" that have allowed MS-13 to flourish inside the country.
TRUMP HONORS PARENTS OF MS-13 VICTIMS: 'AMERICA IS GRIEVING FOR YOU'
The president tackled national security toward the end
of the speech, specifically warning that North Korea's “reckless pursuit
of nuclear missiles” could “very soon” threaten the United States.
“We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to
prevent that from happening,” he said. “Past experience has taught us
that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation.
I will not repeat the mistakes of past administrations that got us into
this dangerous position.”
During the speech, the president recognized the parents
of Otto Warmbier, the University of Virginia student who died over the
summer after being injured while imprisoned in North Korea, who attended
Tuesday’s address.
Vowing to fight terrorism, the president said he
ordered Defense Secretary James Mattis to reexamine the military’s
detention policy toward terrorists and keep open the detention
facilities at Guantánamo Bay.
The president called for bipartisan cooperation on
infrastructure, saying "together, we can reclaim our great building
heritage." He said every federal dollar for infrastructure projects
should be “leveraged” by partnering with state and local governments and
private sector investors for projects.
"We will build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways,
railways and waterways all across our land, and we will do it with
American heart, and American hands, and American grit," Trump said.
“This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.”
- President Trump
Like other presidents before him, Trump used the
address to tout first-year accomplishments like the GOP tax cut bill,
regulation rollbacks, the elimination of ObamaCare’s individual mandate
and gains made over the last year against the Islamic State.
Insisting that the “era of economic surrender is over,”
Trump reiterated his campaign promises to fix bad trade deals and
negotiate new ones. And he celebrated the stock market gains during his
first year in office.
“The stock market has smashed one record after another,
gaining $8 trillion in value,” he said. “That is great news for
Americans' 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.”
“This is our new American moment,” Trump said. “There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.”
He began his speech by praising heroes during natural
disasters and tragedies over the last year, including during the summer
shooting of Republican lawmakers at a baseball practice.
“With us tonight is one of the toughest people ever to
serve in this House -- a guy who took a bullet, almost died, and was
back to work three and a half months later: the legend from Louisiana,
Congressman Steve Scalise,” Trump said.
Earlier Tuesday, during a pre-speech lunch with
television anchors, Trump -- who does not shy away from conflict with
his detractors -- said “unity is really what I'm striving for, to bring
the country together."
"If I could unite this country, I would consider it a
tremendous success,” Trump said. “I would love to be able to bring back
our country in a great form of unity, without a major event - very tough
to do. I would like to do it without a major event, because that major
event is usually a bad thing.”
The address comes after a year of partisan clashes in Washington over health care, the 'travel ban,' regulations and more.
Ahead of the speech, leaders were bracing for potential conflicts.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered a stern
warning to House Democrats attending the speech during a closed-door
caucus meeting on Tuesday, imploring them to play nice.
Pelosi advised Democrats against a walk-out, with
sources in the room saying Pelosi told members “if you want to walk out,
don’t come” and to let Trump be “his slobbering self.”
Members of the Congressional Black Caucus wore
traditional Kente cloth in protest of Trump's reported comments about
immigration from “s---hole countries.”
During the speech, some caucus members declined to
stand even to honor a 12-year-old guest of the first family who was
recognized for gathering flags for veterans' graves.
Trump praised Preston Sharp, a boy from California, who
started a movement to place flags at the graves of fallen service
members.
“Preston's reverence for those who have served our
nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our
hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the
national anthem,” he said.
Trump's comments were aimed at the NFL football players
who have been kneeling during the national anthem as a protest against
police shootings of African-Americans.
Democrats tapped Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Mass., the
grandson of Sen. Robert Kennedy, to deliver the party’s official
response to Trump. In remarks before a small audience in Massachusetts,
Kennedy said many in the country have spent Trump’s first year in office
“anxious, angry, afraid.”
REP. KENNEDY SLAMS 'BULLIES' IN RESPONSE TO TRUMP'S STATE OF THE UNION
“Folks, it would be easy to dismiss this past year as
chaos,” he said. “As partisanship, as politics. But it's far, far bigger
than that. This administration isn't just targeting the laws that
protect us, they're targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of
protection.”
Trump, though, struck a positive and optimistic note in
his speech, ending his address to Congress by saying: “Americans fill
the world with art and music. They push the bounds of science and
discovery.”
“And they forever remind us of what we should never
forget: The people dreamed this country," Trump continued. "The people
built this country. And it is the people who are making America great
again."
Fox News’ Judson Berger, Joseph Weber, Chad Pergram, John Roberts and Bret Baier contributed to this report.
The president extended an "open hand" to members of both parties to
"protect our citizens, of every background, color, and creed," in an
apparent reference to DACA and immigration talks.
