Will Trump mention impeachment in tonight's address?
Welcome back to the Impeachment Briefing. It’s going to be an eventful 24 hours in the Capitol, with the State of the Union address tonight and the final impeachment vote tomorrow afternoon. |
We’re keeping tonight’s newsletter short; we’ll be back tomorrow evening with a supersize edition to fill you in on everything that happened. |
- President Trump will deliver his State of the Union speech at 9 p.m. Eastern, addressing a joint session of Congress in the House chamber. Will he broach the subject of impeachment? It’s hard to say. While he has loudly denounced the investigation almost daily for the last few months, presidents tend to be more subdued during the annual address.
- Mr. Trump will not be the first president to deliver the State of the Union address in the middle of an impeachment trial: President Bill Clinton delivered his 1999 speech while being tried on perjury and obstruction of justice charges. He made a point of not saying a word about it during the speech.
- Democrats will deliver two responses to Mr. Trump’s speech — one in English and one in Spanish. For the former, the party chose Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a pragmatic politician who can put a spotlight on a state that Democrats are desperate to win back in the 2020 election. For the latter, they chose Representative Veronica Escobar, a freshman congresswoman from El Paso, Texas, who is expected to focus on health care and gun control.
- There was a bit of impeachment news today, too, as the Senate leaders from both parties delivered their final thoughts on the trial. Senator Mitch McConnell called it the “most rushed, least fair and least thorough presidential impeachment inquiry in American history.” In response, Senator Chuck Schumer criticized Republicans for blocking witnesses, saying they “refused to get the evidence because they were afraid of what it would show.”
- Senators continued to discuss the possibility of censuring Mr. Trump after the trial ends. Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, said on CNN today that he would “certainly” vote for it but doubted Mr. McConnell would allow the vote. Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, told Fox News that she would not vote to support the censure.
|
| This newsletter is soon coming to an end, and we would love to know what you thought of it. Email us at briefing@nytimes.com. Did a friend forward you the briefing? Sign up here. |
