President Donald Trump will deliver the annual State of the Union address Tuesday night, only hours before he will be almost certainly exonerated of Democrat-led charges of high crimes and misdemeanors in the nation’s third impeachment trial in history.
Trump will join Bill Clinton as the only two presidents to deliver the State of the Union while still under trial for impeachment in the Senate.
Watch the State of the Union address live.
The first president to run for reelection after being impeached, Trump aims to use his nationally-televised speech to lay out his record as the rationale for a second term amid suspense about whether he would address the charges against him. He will speak from the well of the House of Representatives, on the opposite side of the Capitol from where the Senate one day later is expected to acquit him largely along party lines.
How to watch
Trump’s address will be carried here on AJC.com, as well as on all major broadcast networks and their digital and mobile apps, and C-SPAN.
What to watch for
Trump's speech comes one day after the Democratic Iowa caucus, which was plagued by hours of technical delays in reporting results and subjected Hawkeye Democrats to national ridicule and embarrassment.
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How will Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi interact? Last week, Pelosi said Trump will never have a true acquittal because the Senate did not hold a real trial with witnesses. But, she said with relish, “He’ll be impeached forever.”
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Trump, meanwhile, is poised to claim vindication in yet another “witch hunt” by Democrats who, he says, just wanted to overturn the 2016 election. Watch them for any spark of civility. Pelosi and many Democratic women are expected to wear suffragette white to the speech.
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Trump is sure to use the speech to try to remind the country of what he’s accomplished. The White House would not say whether it is modeling Trump’s speech on Clinton’s in 1999, amid his own impeachment trial. Clinton never mentioned the I-word.
»Meet President Trump’s State of the Union guests
Look for Trump, like Clinton, to promote a strong economy. Trump is expected to lead with talk about what the White House calls a “blue-collar boom.” There have been gains in blue-collar wages under Trump, though some of those gains have faded as Trump’s trade war hurt manufacturing.
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Another word to watch for is Ukraine. Will Trump even mention it? Republicans have started to come out and agree that the president had “inappropriately” tried to get political help from that country while he held up military aid. The House impeached him for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress for his actions in response to the House investigation.
»MORE: Georgia congressman, other Dems boycotting SOTU
Other topics to listen for: coronavirus, Trump’s Middle East peace plan, and his observations on recent conflicts with Iran and Afghanistan.
»MORE: Carter blasts Trump’s Mideast peace plan
What comes after Trump’s speech
The Democratic rebuttal will be delivered by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who they hope will cast an election-year spotlight on a swing state in the Midwest as the party looks to win back states Trump narrowly captured.
The New Hampshire primary is Feb. 11 and will be followed by Super Tuesday and then the Georgia primary in late March.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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