Tonight, President Donald Trump is delivering his first official State of the Union address on Capitol Hill, just a little over a year into his presidency. His speech will begin just after 9 p.m. ET before a joint session of Congress.
The president is expected to depart the White House around 8:30 p.m. ET en route to the Capitol and will deliver the address from the chamber of the House of Representatives. Mr. Trump delivered a joint address to Congress last year, a month after the inauguration.
Mr. Trump is expected to tout economic progress under his leadership as well as legislative accomplishments including the Republican-sponsored tax overhaul that he signed into law in December. The president will also likely highlight the need for an immigration fix. Other unfinished items on his agenda include an infrastructure deal, a boost to military funding and a repeal of Obamacare.
In a message shared by The White House this afternoon, it listed several issues the president will talk about in his speech: tax cuts and the economy, infrastructure, immigration, trade and national security. It said, for example, that Mr. Trump will outline a $1 trillion infrastructure plan and explain his “framework on immigration reform.”
Rep. Joe Kennedy III, D-Massachusetts, will deliver the Democratic response to Mr. Trump’s speech afterward.
Live State of the Union coverage tonight:
CBS News will broadcast President Trump’s State of the Union address and Mr. Kennedy’s response on behalf of the Democrats. Follow along with this live blog below and live stream of the speech above.
Follow our live State of the Union coverage below:
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue to be designated survivor
6:45 p.m. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will not attend the State of the Union address. Instead, he will be at an alternate location as the night’s designated survivor, in the event that something should go wrong at the Capitol, CBS News has confirmed.
Excerpts of Trump’s speech released:
6:37 p.m. The White House released the following from Trump’s speech, as prepared for delivery:
- Together, we are building a SAFE, STRONG, and PROUD America.
- We want every American to know the dignity of a hard day’s work; we want every child to be safe in their home at night, and we want every citizen to be proud of this land that we love.
- Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.
- Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the Middle Class and small businesses.
- Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses – many of them thousands of dollars per worker.
- This is our New American Moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American dream.
- Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.
- Americans love their country. And they deserve a government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.
- For the last year we have sought to restore the bonds of trust between our citizens and their government.
- In our drive to make Washington accountable, we have eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration in history.
- We have ENDED the war on American Energy – and we have ENDED the War on CLEAN COAL. We are now an exporter of energy to the world.
- America has also finally turned the page on decades of unfair trade deals that sacrificed our prosperity and shipped away our companies, our jobs and our nation’s wealth.
- America is a nation of builders. We built the Empire State Building in just one year – isn’t it a disgrace that it can now take ten years just to get a permit approved for a simple road?
- I am asking both parties to come together to give us the safe, fast, reliable, and modern infrastructure our economy needs and our people deserve.
- Struggling communities, especially immigrant communities, will also be helped by immigration policies that focus on the best interests of American Workers and American Families.
- So 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, and creed.
- As we rebuild America’s strength and confidence at home, we are also restoring our strength and standing abroad.
- Last year I pledged that we would work with our allies to extinguish ISIS from the face of the earth. One year later, I’m proud to report that the coalition to defeat ISIS has liberated almost 100 percent of the territory once held by these killers in Iraq and Syria. But there is much more work to be done. We will continue our fight until ISIS is defeated.
- Past experience has taught us that complacency and concessions only invite aggression and provocation. I will not repeat the mistakes of the past administrations that got us into this dangerous position.
Hours out from speech, Trump has yet to tweet Tuesday
6:07 p.m. As he prepares for his first State of the Union address, Mr. Trump has been silent on Twitter. As of early Tuesday evening, the president had yet to tweet anything. The day before, the only tweet that emerged from his account was a tweet congratulating the newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary, Alex Azar.
Given his comments on unity, the president could be pulling away from Twitter momentarily to allow space for his message to ring without further distraction.
But Dan Scavino, the president’s social media director, did tweet this of the president as he was about to run through the speech.
Trump speaks at news anchor lunch event
4:05 p.m. Asked what he has learned in his first year as president, Mr. Trump said, “I’ve really learned a lot. You know, governing — when you’re a businessperson, you don’t have to worry about your heart, the heart. You really do what’s best for you — you know, for almost purely monetary reasons. You know, you make your money. You competing against people. In many cases, you don’t like them, you want to beat, and all that stuff. And I build a great company — far better than anybody at this table says. I mean, I have some of the greatest assets in the world. I’ve built a great company,” he said.
“In doing what I’m doing now, a lot of it is heart, a lot of it is compassion, a lot of it is far beyond money — such as immigration, such as the things we’re talking about. From a purely economic standpoint — if I was doing this purely from an economic standpoint, I would sit down and tell you in one second what I’d be doing, okay? It’s so simple.”
2:58 p.m. Mr. Trump hosted a lunch with TV news anchors Tuesday afternoon ahead of his address and emphasized that he wants to unite the country.
“There’s been tremendous divisiveness — not in the last year. There’s been tremendous divisiveness for many years,” he said. “I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity…Without a major event where people pull together, that’s hard to do. But I’d like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing. I would love to do it.”
White House outlines issues Trump will highlight during speech
1:44 p.m. In a message shared by The White House this afternoon, it listed several issues the president will talk about in his speech: tax cuts and the economy, infrastructure, immigration, trade and national security. It said, for example, that Mr. Trump will outline a $1 trillion infrastructure plan and explain his “framework on immigration reform.”
— CBS News’ Kathryn Watson contributed to this report
