7 Takeaways From President Trump's State Of The Union Address
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Well, he's running. If there was any doubt about President Trump's 2020 plans, he dispelled those last night in his State of the Union address. Sprinkled through the speech, the president laid out pillars of a potential campaign message. Here to walk us through them is NPR lead political editor Domenico Montanaro. Hey, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey there, Ari.
SHAPIRO: There were moments in the speech when it sounded more like a campaign rally than a State of the Union address. What did you hear?
MONTANARO: Well, definitely. That's true. I mean, there were moments when there were chants of USA, USA, which is really unusual in that chamber - far more likely at a Trump campaign rally. And there were some subtle 2020 phrases that the president used that we might hear again. Let's take a listen to what he did at the beginning of the speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2019 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We must choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction.
MONTANARO: I mean, so you see what he's doing there. Greatness - nothing is more associated with this president than that Make America Great Again slogan. And resistance - of course, the Democratic slogan against the president. And at the end, he hit it again.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2019 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
TRUMP: I am asking you to choose greatness. No matter the trials we face, no matter the challenges to come, we must go forward together. We must keep America first in our hearts.
MONTANARO: So far from a unifying message there, he's making a binary choice, just like in elections between him and Democrats.
SHAPIRO: OK, so that's the sizzle. What about the steak? What were the policies, the proposals of substance that you think sound like a campaign platform?
MONTANARO: Well, I mean, he spent a good chunk of the speech obviously focusing on immigration, which is certainly a core issue to the base. He showed no signs of relenting on a border wall or border security funding, and said that he will build it. He also touched on some pretty familiar core Republican themes. He took a very strongly pro-Israel stance. He talked about strengthening the military. And he used very stark language when you're talking about late-term abortion. There's no single issue, really, that has sent Democrats and Republicans further into their corners than abortion over the years. So by bringing it up the way he did - in a State of the Union in a year before he's up for re-election - he's really talking directly to the base.
SHAPIRO: During the foreign policy part of his speech, the president talked about Venezuela and seemed to make that about U.S. domestic politics. Listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2019 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
TRUMP: Here in the United States, we are alarmed by the new calls to adopt socialism in our country. America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: Socialism - do you think that specter is going to be a big 2020 campaign theme?
MONTANARO: You bet. I mean, it's hard not to see that as a shot at some of the Democrats running in 2020. Bernie Sanders was in that room. He's a self-declared democratic socialist. He certainly moved the party left in 2016 when he ran for president, and now almost all of the Democrats who might run or who are already running for president support, for example, "Medicare-for-all." That's a big change. Republicans see that as a lurch toward socialism, and this president is happy to run against it.
SHAPIRO: It's NPR's Domenico Montanaro. Thanks, Domenico.
MONTANARO: You're so welcome.
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