Jamie Hallman, Junior
The President of the United States is required to give a State of the Union Address in which the President updates Congress on how his administration is doing. Donald Trump, the current President, gave his State of the Union Address last night (1/7/18) and he did not hold anything back. Throughout the entire speech, the theme of unity was prevalent; the two parties should come together to create a solution that benefits everyone. Trump had come up with many examples for this such as The First Step Act where the parties come together to better the justice system for nonviolent drug offenders. Trump preached unity, but anyone could clearly see the division in the House. Republicans were more prone to clapping and, many times, only one half of the room was standing up and cheering, while the other was sitting in silence.
Unity was not the only thing that President Trump had on his agenda for the night. He brought up the infamous border wall that he so desires to separate the United States and Mexico. The wall is not only supposed to block the illegal immigrants, but cartels and drugs that are coming over the border and the illegal immigrants who come over and take part in criminal activity. Trump brings attention to a certain case where a woman's parents were killed by an illegal alien and professes that nobody else should go through that pain of losing a loved one. So far, ICE officers had made 266,000 illegal immigrants and calls these ICE officers “Law enforcement heroes.” Trump then went on to promise to never abolish ICE and stop the good work they are doing. Furthermore, Trump talks about his Common Sense Proposal, which calls for more drug detection, the closing of loopholes that enable child smuggling, and a wall. Trump promises that he will get the wall built, even bringing up an example of how a wall has helped El Paso. The city put up fences to stop illegal immigration and saw their crime rate go way down. This was very misleading since El Paso’s crime rate was never exceptionally high and there could possibly be no correlation to the border fences they had put up.
Even though Trump wants the border wall, he says that he wants immigrants to come into the country legally. Trump gets a round of applause when he says that immigrants deeply enrich the country and its culture, but he just wants everybody in the country to be safe.
Another topic that Trump patted himself on the back for was the new jobs he had created and the trade deals he had structured. Trump proclaims that unemployment is at an all-time low and there are more than 157 million people in the workforce today. Trump had promised to bring more jobs into the country ever since he ran in the primaries. He says that there is a new quality of living in the 21st century. Apparently, there were another 304,000 jobs created just last month. According to Trump, the only thing that could stop this greatness is the investigations. Trump wants peace and says that you cannot have peace while also having war and investigations. “It doesn’t work that way,” Trump claimed.
While on the topic of jobs, he starts to bring statistics of women in the workplace. He states that there are more women in the workplace than ever before, which had made every woman in Congress stand up and cheer. Some were even seen pointing to themselves and practically dancing with pride. Going with the statement of pride, there was a sea of white in the House as most women from Congress wore a white pantsuit. White was chosen to honor women’s rights, specifically suffrage. Trump tells them to “continue standing” because they will like what he says next. He then brings up the fact that there are more women in Congress than ever before, which elicits the same response from the women, who cheered again. The Congresswomen even started to cheer “USA” in response to the Republicans doing so earlier for another reason.
Trump brings up NAFTA and goes on to say how unfair it was to the American people then brings up his own bill that will replace it: USMCA. This bill is supposedly exponentially better for the American citizens and puts them first. Continuing on that line, Trump brings up the fact that he lowered taxes for working families and doubled the Child Tax Credit. While on this topic, he also talks about how he ended the Death Tax. Trump goes even further to claim that his administration cut more regulations than any other regulation. Trump also talks of the new tariffs that he had imposed on China which is racking up millions of dollars for the United States budget.
On the topic of overseas relations, Trump talks of the new peace negotiations on the Korean Peninsula. He boasted that since his peace talks with North Korea, there were no more missile launches and North Korea had returned their men to them. Alongside that, Trump claimed that if he had not been elected, the U.S. would have been in the midst of a war with North Korea. Trump also adds that he stands with new Venezuelan President and the Venezuelan peoples’ fight for justice. Lastly, he talks about how his administration had made great strides to stop the ISIS regime. He has accelerated peace negotiations for a political settlement of what is happening in Afghanistan.
One of the best heartwarming moments of the entire Address is when Trump recognized a man that had survived the Nazi Concentration camps, and upon realizing it was his birthday, they sang happy birthday to him. This was a great way to help close out the address and after, Trump went to conclude his speech. In his conclusion, he spoke of the way that Americans have to work past their differences, make America strong, and put America first.
After the Address was over, the Democrats had a chance to put forth their response to the address. Stacey Abrams was the chosen speaker for the response and was not shy to speak about Trump in a negative light. She first started out her response with an anecdote of her father and the kind-hearted person he was. After that, she goes onto say the government shutdown was a stunt orchestrated by nobody other than Trump himself. She inferences that Trump abandons his family values and only cares about his wealth and himself. Abrams brings up issues that Trump did not acknowledge, for example, gun reform. She provides the example of children practicing active shooter drills while the White House sits in silence. Next, Abrams claims the Republican Party is crushing the middle class and not building them up. This greatly contrasts what Trump said earlier, that the economy is prospering, but Abrams says people are living paycheck to paycheck. Abrams does touch on immigration, saying that the Democratic people want safe borders, but not walls. Abrams moved quickly, then moving onto the importance of voting and how voter suppression is a real thing that does happen to people. Abrams then ends her speech with a nod to Trumps, saying that if America sticks to these values, then America will always be strong.
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