State of the Union goes like this: "BLAAA BLAAAA BLAAAA BLAAAA, I am a criminal"

Everything you need to know about the 2019 State of the Union

The president's address comes at a particularly fraught moment in his relationship with Capitol Hill.

By QUINT FORGEY

When and what time is Trump delivering the 2019 State of the Union?

President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear before a joint session of the 116th Congress in the chamber of the House of Representatives to deliver the 2019 State of the Union address on Feb. 5, at 9 p.m.

How can I watch this year’s SOTU?

All major networks and cable news channels will broadcast the speech live. The White House will stream it live on its website, as will news networks through Facebook.

How long is the speech?

Trump's first State of the Union address, delivered last January, was the third-longest ever delivered, clocking in at 1 hour and 20 minutes.

That’s a near-historic amount of time, and just nine minutes shy of the overall record, which goes to President Bill Clinton’s final State of the Union address in 2000. Clinton also claims the No. 2 spot with his 1995 address, which lasted 1 hour and 25 minutes.

But going back to Lyndon B. Johnson, the average length of presidents’ State of the Union remarks is roughly 50 minutes. Trump aides have said his Tuesday address will last about an hour.

Are we sure this is actually happening?

This time, yes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) invited Trump to address Congress on Jan. 29. But as the government shutdown that began on Dec. 22 entered its fourth week, Pelosi asked Trump to postpone his address until federal funding was restored — or else submit his speech in writing.

Trump balked, and the White House said it would proceed with plans for an address either in the House chamber or at an alternative location. Pelosi parried, telling the president that lawmakers would not vote on a resolution authorizing his appearance until the government reopened.

Trump conceded in a tweet, writing of the speaker’s maneuvers: “This is her prerogative.” Three days after the shutdown ended on Jan. 25, Pelosi reinvited the president to deliver his remarks on Feb. 5.

Didn’t I just watch Trump deliver a speech in prime time?

Yes, you did.

On Jan. 8, two and a half weeks into the government shutdown, Trump made his first televised address from the Oval Office, seeking to sell the American public on his 2016 campaign promise of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

In that speech, the president blamed undocumented immigrants for the killings of thousands of citizens, called the southern border a pipeline for illegal drugs and repeated his false claim that Mexico would indirectly pay for the wall through a renegotiated NAFTA agreement.

How are Trump and Congress getting along at the moment?

Not great. The president’s address comes at a fraught period in his relationship with Capitol Hill.

After the politically exhausting 35-day government shutdown ended last month in a stalemate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers began negotiating a package of border security measures that Trump would be willing to sign into law before federal funding expires again in less than two weeks, on Feb. 15.

But Trump has expressed little faith in the immigration-focused conference committee to provide him with the billions in taxpayer dollars he wants to pay for a border wall. At the same time, Pelosi has made it clear that no wall funding would be included in a congressional compromise.

The president is also taking heat from his right flank on his administration’s foreign policy. On Thursday, 43 of the Senate’s 53 Republicans backed a bipartisan measure by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) rebuking Trump’s plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan and Syria.

And Pelosi’s new seating assignment for Tuesday’s address — side by side with Vice President Mike Pence atop the speaker’s rostrum, peering just over Trump’s left shoulder — is sure to underscore the looming House oversight investigations into the president that her newly empowered Democratic majority is preparing.

So, Trump will face a tough crowd?

That’s likely, for the reasons above. Another factor to consider is that the composition of the House membership has changed considerably since the president’s first State of the Union address in January 2018. Democrats’ reception to that speech was no less than funereal, and Trump’s remarks were punctuated by standing ovations and cheers of adulation from a triumphant GOP House majority.

But in November's midterm elections, Republicans lost 40 seats to the Democrats and became the minority party in the chamber for the first time since 2010.

Though the State of the Union in the halls of Congress is no Make America Great Again rally, Trump loves to play to an audience. It will be interesting to see whether — and how — the president modifies his tone to make his appeals to a considerably changed legislative branch.

The biggest question surrounding Tuesday night, at least for now, seems to be whether the president will use his platform to declare a national emergency at the southern border as justification for beginning construction of a wall.

Trump is not confident that congressional negotiators will pass a measure that would deliver the $5.7 billion he wants for the structure. And after folding to Pelosi last month by signing a three-week stopgap government funding measure with no wall money attached, the president might resort to calling upon the powers of his office to get what he wants.

But top Republicans in recent weeks have criticized the prospect of declaring a national emergency, cautioning that it sets a dangerous presidential precedent and positing that future Democratic commanders in chief could use such a maneuver to advance their agendas. An emergency declaration by Trump would likely face no small number of legal challenges.

While his plans remain unclear, Trump is stoking speculation that a major announcement is in store. He advised reporters on Friday to "listen closely" to his upcoming speech, adding: “You'll hear the State of the Union, and then you'll see what happens right after the State of the Union."

Though it is possible Trump will conjure alarming imagery of gang violence, drug smuggling and human trafficking from Mexico into the U.S, people familiar with the current iteration of Trump’s remarks said they include a call for bipartisanship and what one Republican close to the White House described as a “warm and fuzzy” overture to Pelosi.

The president has told conservative allies he wants to incorporate firm anti-abortion language into his address Tuesday and might include an anti-abortion figure on the guest list for first lady Melania Trump's viewing box.

He is also expected to announce a 10-year strategy to end the HIV epidemic in America, as well as highlight broad themes such as economic success under his administration that will frame the speech as something of a 2020 re-election campaign kickoff event.

Who are First Lady Melania Trump and the president inviting to the speech?

The Trumps are inviting 13 people to attend the president’s speech, according to a White House news release:

• Debra Bissell, Heather Armstrong and Madison Armstrong: Three generations of the family of Gerald and Sharon David of Reno, Nev., who were killed in January by a man immigration authorities say was illegally in the U.S. from El Salvador.
• Matthew Charles: The first prisoner to be released as a result of “The First Step Act,” the bipartisan overhaul to federal sentencing laws championed by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
• Grace Eline: At 9 years old, Grace was diagnosed with Germinoma, a germ-cell brain tumor, and in May, Grace started cancer treatment. She recently finished chemotherapy and is “determined to help other children who are fighting cancer.”
• Ashley Evans: A woman who has struggled with opioid abuse, who this month will celebrate more than a year in recovery and be reunited with her daughter full-time.
• Elvin Hernandez: A special agent with the Trafficking in Persons Unit of the Homeland Security Department Investigations division. His current assignment is focused on international human trafficking investigations involving transnational organized crime groups.
• Roy James: He worked at the Vicksburg Forest Products lumber facility for nearly three decades, when he told Vice President Mike Pence that he was informed the sawmill would be shutting down. According to the White House, Vicksburg was designated an Opportunity Zone through provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the Republican-led effort to change the nation’s tax code. The plant reopened and James now oversees the entire operation.
• Timothy Matson and Judah Samet: Matson is a Pittsburgh Police Department officer and SWAT Team member, who sustained multiple gunshot wounds when he responded to the mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in October. Samet is a member of the synagogue who survived the shooting. Before emigrating to the U.S. in the 1960s, Samet lived in Israel after surviving the Holocaust.
• Joshua Trump: A sixth-grade student from Wilmington, Del., who is bullied for having the same last name as the president.
• Tom Wibberley: Father of Navy Seaman Craig Wibberley, who was killed during the October 2000 terrorist attack on the USS Cole.
• Alice Johnson: Trump granted Johnson clemency on June 6, 2018, after being personally lobbied by reality TV star and socialite Kim Kardashian West. She is now an advocate in the criminal justice reform movement.

Who’s delivering the Democratic response?

Stacey Abrams, the 45-year-old former Georgia state representative who fell short in her high-profile 2018 gubernatorial bid but energized liberal voters in the South, will deliver the Democratic response to Trump’s address.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced her selection last week, and Abrams is eyeing a 2020 Senate run to oust Republican David Perdue.

The president offered some warm words from the Oval Office last week for the rising Democratic star.

“I respect her. I don’t know her, I haven’t met her, but I hope she does a good job,” Trump said.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a former congressman from California and close Pelosi ally, will deliver the Spanish-language response.