President Barack Obama turned his valedictory State of the Union address into a repudiation of the partisanship, intolerance, and alienating rhetoric for which he believes that the GOP front-runner stands. He also said he did not make a special point to attend the speech given rivals’ criticisms of his Senate attendance record: “I thought it was important to be here”. Congressional Republicans began filing out even before it was over.
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Republican frontrunner Donald Trump summed up his response to President Obama’s final State of the Union address with a 140 character tweet – calling the president’s speech “really boring”.
Following the address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a Republican rumored to be on the shortlist for vice president, delivered an official rebuttal to the address with a far more negative outlook of the future but also a shared responsibility for the past. Highlighting her leadership after the Charleston shooting previous year, Haley, the daughter of Indian immigrants, defended immigration and called for “respect” for “modern families”. We must resist that temptation. “No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws, and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country”. They were: how to give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy; how do we make technology work for us, not against us, as exemplified by climate change; how to keep Americans safe and still lead the world without becoming its policemen; and how to make our politics reflect the best in people, not the worst. He’s expected cast an optimistic vision for the future that builds on his two terms in office, while acknowledging that sweeping change has sparked anxieties for some citizens.
“America has been through big changes before”, Obama said in the speech excerpts.
“We made change work for us, always extending America’s promise outward, to the next frontier, to more and more people”.
“Often the best thing we can do is turn down the volume”.
Embedded in Obama’s remarks is an implicit call to stay the course with Democrats in the November election.
The cheers and smiles from Republican senators underscored the vice president’s popularity on Capitol Hill, where he spent most of his adult life.
Although First Lady Michelle Obama left an empty seat among her guests as a tribute to victims of gun violence, the President did not address gun violence.
Trump wasn’t the only Republican presidential candidate to bash the president’s speech. Bernie Sanders, who is running for the Democratic nomination.
Obama’s advisers, anxious to stave off lame-duck labeling as long as possible, have brushed off suggestions that his speech would amount to a victory lap or a capstone to his presidency.
Since he took office during the financial recession in 2008, Obama said the job market is in “the longest streak of private-sector job creation in history”, with more than 14 million jobs created. “We just need to call them what they are - killers and fanatics who have to be rooted out, hunted down, and destroyed”. The Pentagon said the sailors had drifted into Iranian waters after encountering mechanical problems.
Obama denounced “political hot air”. They believe he has presided over anemic growth rates, wielded executive power on immigration, gun control and climate change to thwart the Constitution, is oblivious to the severity of Islamist terrorism and has engineered an era of declining American power in the world.
“While we’re certainly not expecting much new, there is one thing that we hope to hear from the president”. He will also address the Iran nuclear deal, Psaki said on CNN.
While Obama said the last of these topics might be the most important-he called for sweeping pro-democracy reforms-his lengthy explanation of his decisions surrounding the unilateral use of military force overseas (when going after individuals and groups who have harmed Americans) and diplomacy (when America is expected to show global leadership) may have been his clearest yet.
The President’s address is one of his last chances to command a huge prime-time television audience and talk to Americans directly after a seven-year presidency shaped by a hard-grinding economic recovery at home and chaos overseas.
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“Tonight marks the eighth year I’ve come here to report on the State of the Union”. “And that can make a world of difference”.
