POLITICAL FIGURES/POLITICS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump will deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday [1-30-18] night from the US Capitol, but not all of Congress will be in attendance.
Trump’s tumultuous first year in office was marked by controversy, leading several Democratic lawmakers to announce that they plan to boycott the speech altogether.
A large bloc of House Democrats boycotted the President’s first joint address to Congress last year. Typically, lawmakers of both parties attend the annual State of the Union address, and those from the opposite party tend to save their criticisms of the President for after the speech, releasing statements about the policy pronouncements they disagree with immediately after the address wraps up.
In previous years there was an effort to tamp down on the partisanship on Capitol Hill with members of opposing parties sitting together during the speech to demonstrate their willingness to work across the aisle. But there’s little sign of that sentiment in 2018. Here’s who’s said they’re planning on skipping the President’s address:
Following criticism surrounding Trump’s reported vulgar comments about various nations during a closed-door meeting about immigration reform, Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, said he would not attend… Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, a harsh Trump critic, also said she wouldn’t be going… Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Florida, shared a similar sentiment on Twitter, and posted that she could not attend… In a Huffington Post op-ed, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Washington, outlined why she wouldn’t be attending… Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Oregon, said in early January that he would not go… Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-New York, tweeted about his decision, writing: ‘He does not respect me or the communities I represent, so I cannot in good conscience sit idly on the House floor and listen to his scripted speech. #SOTU.’
Democratic Reps. Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky and Bobby Rush of Illinois all have said they plan to skip Tuesday night’s event, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.”
-Sophie Tatum, “These Democrats plan to boycott Trump’s State of the Union address,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, Jan. 30, 2018 11:10am