Trump pairs his prison reform success with his border efforts

President Trump used the bipartisan success of his prison reform bill, the First Step Act, to lead into his call to Congress to broker a border security deal during his State of the Union speech.

Trump, who invited former prisoners Alice Marie Johnson and Matthew Charles, echoed a remarkably hopeful theme woven throughout his address. Rather than use the mention of Johnson, whom he granted clemency, and Charles, who became the first prisoner freed thanks to the First Step Act, to paint himself as a political victor, Trump used it as evidence that our bicameral Congress can come to a bipartisan deal on border security.