President Donald Trump will deliver his second State of the Union address on Tuesday evening (9 PM ET) before a joint session of Congress. Trump’s speech, which was scheduled for Jan. 29, was postponed because of the government shutdown.
Democrat Stacey Abrams, the failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate who is reportedly thinking about running for Georgia’s Senate seat in 2020, will give the response from Atlanta, Georgia. She will reportedly be surrounded by numerous activists. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, one of the leaders of the anti-Trump resistance, will deliver the Spanish-language response. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), will also deliver a response even though he is facing criticism for taking some of the spotlight off of Abrams. Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), the 2020 presidential candidate, delivered a prebuttal ahead of Trump’s address.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News throughout the evening for live updates. All times eastern.
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11:50: Americans approve of Trump’s SOTU speech:
11:40: Ocasio-Cortez, who has often been caught not having done her homework on a variety of issues, accuses Trump of not having done his “homework” before the State of the Union speech.
11:35: Sanders gives his State of the Union response and blasts Trump for not mentioning climate change and says the economy for Trump’s billionaire friends have never been this good. He says the economy is not “booming” for ordinary Americans and is certainly not “hot” when half of Americans over 55 have no idea how they will retire with dignity. He rips Trump for not mentioning climate change in his speech. Unlike Abrams, Sanders actually listened to Trump’s speech and is making specific rebuttals. Sanders rips Trump’s infrastructure plan–says he’ll sell land to Wall Street and even foreigners. Sanders also says people are not “truly free” when they cannot go to the doctor or buy prescription drugs they desperately need.
10:55: Becerra response:
10:53: CNN’s Anderson Cooper immediately says he liked Abrams’s speech better than Trump’s.
Abrams rebutted Trump’s speech without even watching it?
10:40: Stacey Abrams gives her SOTU response and introduces herself and her bio to a nationwide audience. She then blasts the shutdown as a “stunt” engineered by Trump that abandoned “our values.” She says “compassionate treatment” at the border is not the same as open borders, and she blasts Trump for caging children. She says America is made stronger “by immigrants, not walls.” She says voting rights is the “next battle.” She says we must hold everyone from the highest office to our own families accountable for “racism.”
Odd green screen or background behind Abrams already distracting viewers:
10:35: Left angry:
10:25: Peggy Noonan praises Trump speech, says Ocasio-Cortez looked “sullen, teenaged and at a loss.”
10:19: Trump on confronting the poison of anti-Semitism:
We will not avert our eyes from a regime that chants death to America and threatens genocide against the Jewish people. We must never ignore the vile poison of anti-Semitism, or those who spread its venomous creed. With one voice, we must confront this hatred anywhere and everywhere it occurs.
Just months ago, 11 Jewish-Americans were viciously murdered in an anti-semitic attack on the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. SWAT Officer Timothy Matson raced into the gunfire and was shot seven times chasing down the killer.
Trump introduces Matson sand says “Thank you, we are forever grateful.” He also introduces Pittsburgh survivor Judah Samet, who narrowly escaped death in Pittsburgh and more than seven decades ago narrowly survived the Nazi concentration camps. Today is Judah’s 81st birthday (some sing Happy Birthday to Judah Samet):
Judah says he can still remember the exact moment, nearly 75 years ago, after 10 months in a concentration camp, when he and his family were put on a train, and told they were going to another camp. Suddenly the train screeched to a very strong halt. A soldier appeared. Judah’s family braced for the absolute worst. Then, his father cried out with joy: “It’s the Americans! It’s the Americans!”
Trump introduces a second Holocaust survivor–Joshua Kaufman, who was a prisoner at Dachau Concentration Camp.
“To me,” Joshua recalls, “the American soldiers were proof that God exists, and they came down from the sky. They came down from heaven.”
10:15: Trump introduces “Tom Wibberley, whose son, Navy Seaman Craig Wibberley, was one of the 17 sailors” America lost on the USS Cole. Trump tells him: “Tom: we vow to always remember the heroes of the USS Cole.”
10:12: Trump, on endless Middle East wars: “As a candidate for President, I loudly pledged a new approach. Great nations do not fight endless wars.” Trump says “it is time to give our brave warriors in Syria a warm welcome home” and adds that his has “also accelerated our negotiations to reach a political settlement in Afghanistan.”
10:10: Trump on Venezuela and the “new calls to adopt socialism” in America:
We stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom — and we condemn the brutality of the Maduro regime, whose socialist policies have turned that nation from being the wealthiest in South America into a state of abject poverty and despair.Here, in the United States, we are alarmed by new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence –- not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free. Tonight, we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country. (Republicans chant “USA! USA! USA!”)
10:08: Trump announces that he and North Korea’s Kim will meet in Vietnam on Feb.27-28
10:03: Trump asking Congress to protect unborn children:
There could be no greater contrast to the beautiful image of a mother holding her infant child than the chilling displays our Nation saw in recent days. Lawmakers in New York cheered with delight upon the passage of legislation that would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother’s womb moments before birth. These are living, feeling, beautiful babies who will never get the chance to share their love and dreams with the world. And then, we had the case of the Governor of Virginia where he basically stated he would execute a baby after birth. To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.
9:57: Trump also asks for a commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic within 10 years and to battle childhood cancer.
9:54: Trump says both parties should unite to fix the country’s “crumbling infrastructure.”
“This is not an option. This is a necessity,” Trump says of the infrastructure bill, which will lead many to wonder why he didn’t do infrastructure out of the gate.
The next major priority for Trump is also to “lower the cost of healthcare and prescription drugs — and to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.” Trump adds: “I am asking the Congress to pass legislation that finally takes on the problem of global freeloading and delivers fairness and price transparency for American patients. Finally! We should also require drug companies, insurance companies, and hospitals to disclose real prices to foster competition and bring costs way down.”
9:53: Trump also asking lawmakers to “pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product, we can charge them the exact same tariff on the exact same product that they sell to us.”
9:51: On trade, Trump says “one priority is paramount — reversing decades of calamitous trade policies.”
“We are now making it clear to China that after years of targeting our industries, and stealing our intellectual property, the theft of American jobs and wealth has come to an end,” he says. Trump also blasts the “catastrophe known as NAFTA.”
9:49: Trump reaching out to Democrats dressed in white:
All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before — and exactly one century after the Congress passed the Constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before.
9:43: Trump calls out Democrats who have voted for walls in the past:
“In the past, most of the people in this room voted for a wall — but the proper wall never got built. I’ll get it built,” Trump says. “This is a smart, strategic, see-through steel barrier — not just a simple concrete wall. It will be deployed in the areas identified by border agents as having the greatest need, and as these agents will tell you, where walls go up, illegal crossings go way, way down.”
9:39: Trump now honoring Angel Moms. He says nobody should have to suffer the heartache they have had to endure. Trump introduces Debra Bissell, whose parents were burglarized and shot to death three weeks ago in Nevada by illegal aliens. Trump says not one more American life should be lost because the country could not secure its borders. Trump also honors ICE agent Elvin Hernandez. Trump says: “I pledge to you tonight that we will never abolish our heroes from ICE.”
9:35: Trump on immigration. He says he wants people to come into America “in the largest numbers ever” so long as they come in legally. He asks Congress to come together on illegal immigration because it is a “moral issue.” He also speaks about how working-class Americans often have to suffer because of illegal immigration while wealthy Americans “push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards”:
The Congress has 10 days left to pass a bill that will fund our Government, protect our homeland, and secure our southern border.
Now is the time for the Congress to show the world that America is committed to ending illegal immigration and putting the ruthless coyotes, cartels, drug dealers, and human traffickers out of business.
As we speak, large, organized caravans are on the march to the United States. We have just heard that Mexican cities, in order to remove the illegal immigrants from their communities, are getting trucks and buses to bring them up to our country in areas where there is little border protection. I have ordered another 3,750 troops to our southern border to prepare for this tremendous onslaught.
This is a moral issue. The lawless state of our southern border is a threat to the safety, security, and financial well‑being of all America. We have a moral duty to create an immigration system that protects the lives and jobs of our citizens. This includes our obligation to the millions of immigrants living here today, who followed the rules and respected our laws. Legal immigrants enrich our Nation and strengthen our society in countless ways. I want people to come into our country in the largest numbers ever, but they have to come in legally.
Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country.
No issue better illustrates the divide between America’s working class and America’s political class than illegal immigration. Wealthy politicians and donors push for open borders while living their lives behind walls and gates and guards.
Meanwhile, working class Americans are left to pay the price for mass illegal migration — reduced jobs, lower wages, overburdened schools and hospitals, increased crime, and a depleted social safety net.
Tolerance for illegal immigration is not compassionate — it is actually very cruel. One in three women is sexually assaulted on the long journey north. Smugglers use migrant children as human pawns to exploit our laws and gain access to our country.
Human traffickers and sex traffickers take advantage of the wide open areas between our ports of entry to smuggle thousands of young girls and women into the United States and to sell them into prostitution and modern-day slavery.
Tens of thousands of innocent Americans are killed by lethal drugs that cross our border and flood into our cities — including meth, heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl.
The savage gang, MS-13, now operates in 20 different American states, and they almost all come through our southern border. Just yesterday, an MS-13 gang member was taken into custody for a fatal shooting on a subway platform in New York City. We are removing these gang members by the thousands, but until we secure our border they’re going to keep streaming back in.
Year after year, countless Americans are murdered by criminal illegal aliens.
9:27: Trump now touts his bipartisan criminal justice reform bill. He speaks about Alice Johnson, who is in attendance and to whom Trump granted clemency (after a bit of lobbying from Kim Kardashian).
9:23: Trump says “an economic miracle is taking place in the United States” and “the only thing that can stop it are foolish wars, politics, or ridiculous partisan investigations.”
“If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation,” Trump says.
Gillibrand exasperated:
And trying to fundraise off of her SOTU “moment”:
9:20: After highlighting the record-low unemployment numbers for people of color, Trump says his administration has “unleashed a revolution in American energy.”
“The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world,” he says. “And now, for the first time in 65 years, we are a net exporter of energy. ”
Trump says America is winning “each and every day.”
“Member of Congress, the state of our union is strong,” Trump says.
9:15: Trump asks Americans to reject the politics of “revenge, resistance, and retribution and embrace the boundless potential of cooperation, compromise, and the common good.” Trump says lawmakers can choose between “greatness or gridlock” or “vision or vengeance.” He asks lawmakers to choose “greatness.”
“We must choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction,” Trump says. “Tonight, I ask you to choose greatness.”
Trump talks about the “economic boom” that has rarely been seen before. He says the economy is growing twice as fast than when he took office. “There has been nothing like it.” Trump adds, “we are just getting started.” Trump says wages are rising and are growing faster for blue-collar workers. “Hottest economy in the world,” Trump boasts. “Not even close.”
9:11: Trump speaks about D-Day and Moon Landing. He introduces three D-Day veterans/heroes and Buzz Aldrin. He says American astronauts will go back to space this year on “American rockets.”
9:07: Trump says he is ready to achieve breakthroughs in the new Congress… “not as two parties…but as one nation.” He says he will lay out an agenda that is not Republican or Democrat.. but “the agenda of the American people.” He talks about fair trade for American workers and revitalizing the nation’s infrastructure. He says there is a new opportunity in American politics “if only we have the courage to seize it.” He also spoke about an America-first foreign policy and revamping the country’s immigration system.
9:00 PM: Trump arrives to deliver the State of the Union address. Most Democrats not applauding.
8:40 PM: Kavanaugh arrives:
8:30 PM: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) arrives:
8:20 PM: The former Rep. weighs in:
8:10 PM: On CNN, Ocasio-Cortez, when asked if she is going in with an open mind after tweeting that people should watch “none” of Trump’s State of the Union speech, tries to have it both ways once again and says she’s open to listening to what Trump has to say. Her guest, Ana Maria Archila, says it still “painful” that Brett Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court and she’ll be in the same room as Kavanaugh tonight.
8:05 PM:
8:00 PM: Harris guffaws before starting her prebuttal. She says we are at an “inflection” point in the history of our nation. She hits on climate change, the “broken criminal justice system,” and racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, homophobia, and transphobia. She talks about healthcare and education being “fundamental rights.” She wants to fight for an America that welcomes refugees and immigrants. Harris says if last year’s remarks are any guide, we’re in store for a speech that seeks to “score political points by driving us apart.” She says Americans will hear “insincere appeals to unity.” Harris says don’t buy Trump’s claims that the economy is doing great. She mentions the federal workers who went 35 days without being paid during the government shutdown. Harris says “don’t forget the babies ripped from their parents’ arms” when Trump talks about the border wall. Harris says the “strength of our union has never been found in the walls we build.” She says it’s in the country’s “diversity” and “unity.”
7:45 PM: Republicans inviting Angel families to SOTU:
7:40 PM: Abrams ready to rip into Trump:
7:30 PM: Resistance Whiteout: Democrats wear white to SOTU: