President Trump delivered a relatively straightforward State of the Union address with few surprises and almost none of the glibness he often exhibits in public appearances. Trump began with an optimistic tone to tout the recently passed tax cuts, offered platitudes on trade and infrastructure, and ended with an extensive section about foreign policy and national security.
The most practically consequential section concerned the issue of the day: immigration. Days after issuing a relatively narrow proposal on the issue, the president has faced pushback from his right. Trump’s proposal asks for a few big conservative immigration goals—border wall funding, ending chain migration and the visa lottery—in exchange for an amnesty for 1.8 million of those who illegally immigrated to the United States as children. His first several words on the subject of immigration Tuesday seemed designed to remind hardliners he is on their side.
After highlighting a pair of families whose children were murdered by illegal alien gang members, specifically from the Latino gang MS-13, Trump said he is “calling on the Congress to finally close the deadly loopholes that have allowed MS-13, and other criminals, to break into our country.”
His best crafted line of the night came a few moments later when he emphasized his priority on immigration was safety for the Americans. “My duty, and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber, is to defend Americans—to protect their safety, their families, their communities, and their right to the American Dream,” Trump said. “Because Americans are dreamers too.”
It was a line designed to invigorate Republicans and infuriate liberal Democrats—nearly all of whom are unlikely to back Trump on nearly any immigration legislation. Then, after restating the elements of his immigration proposal, Trump encouraged Congress to seize the opportunity to pass it. “So let us come together, set politics aside, and finally get the job done,” he said.
Trump’s task was to stanch any bleeding from the right of the House GOP conference and convince enough of the center of both parties (including, critically, red-state Democrats in the Senate) to join him. Will focusing on illegal immigrants as sources of violent crime and entreating members of Congress to “get to job done” bring a coalition together before next week’s federal funding deadline? It’s hard to say for sure. But unless and until Trump and congressional leaders can broker a compromise on immigration, little else of Trump’s domestic agenda outlined in the State of the Union has a chance of getting done this year.
Infrastructure Watch—As expected, there were scant details on what President Trump wants specifically in his long-awaited framework on infrastructure. And his brief comments on how many federal taxpayer dollars should be spent on building new roads and bridges were ambiguous.
“Tonight, I am calling on the Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment that our country so desperately needs,” Trump said. “Every federal dollar should be leveraged by partnering with state and local governments and, where appropriate, tapping into private-sector investment, to permanently fix the infrastructure deficit, and we can do it.”
What does this mean, exactly? Is that $1.5 trillion a straight-up appropriation of federal funds? Does the state- and local-government and private-sector partnerships help foot some of that big bill? If so, how much of it? These are the questions that will determine if and how Trump’s infrastructure package ultimately gets the support of even his own party in Congress.
Trade Talk—The president gave only a few remarks on another of his favorite subjects: trade. He boasted that America had “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.”
Declaring the “era of economic surrender . . . totally over,” the president said this: “From now on, we expect trading relationships to be fair and, very importantly, reciprocal.”
Trump did not comment on any specific U.S. trade agreements, including the North American Free Trade Agreement, which U.S. diplomats are currently re-negotiating with Canadian and Mexican officials. Nor did he tout the recent tariffs on South Korean imports.
What about the national debt and federal budget deficits? What about entitlement spending? There was no mention at all in Trump’s address about these standby Republican concerns. That’s perhaps unsurprising, given the president’s lack of interest in them, but their absence was notable all the same. Read my colleagues Chris Deaton and Steve Hayes on the subjects.
NBC’s Chuck Todd points out on Twitter that Trump did mention one entitlement program—a new one he proposed.
A disagreement over U.S. foreign policy toward North Korea is reportedly why the Trump administration has parted ways with their planned nomination for the ambassador to South Korea, according to a story in the Washington Post:
One More Thing—And right on cue, Cha has an op-ed at the Post blasting the administration’s policy.
Clinton Watch—Just a few minutes before Tuesday’s State of the Union address, Hillary Clinton released a lengthy statement on Facebook responding to the New York Times reports about an adviser to her 2008 presidential campaign credibly accused of sexual harassment. Clinton has been criticized for not firing the adviser, Burns Strider, and instead moving him elsewhere on the campaign.
In the statement, Clinton said she would have acted differently now. “If I had it to do again, I wouldn’t,” she said. Read the whole thing here.
Song of the Day—“Let It Bleed” by the Rolling Stones
