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President Trump’s Address To Congress

President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo/AP)
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Jim Lo Scalzo/AP)

President Trump’s address to Congress. We’ll unpack the speech and look at Trump’s struggle to revamp American healthcare.

You could almost hear the country breathing a sigh of relief last night, not to have its combative president come out swinging this time. It was a night for talk of optimism and possibility, read right off the teleprompter. No “American carnage” and “fake news.” The president’s address to Congress spoke of a “nation of miracles.” Good health care, gleaming infrastructure, paid family leave. Great! So now what? And how? This hour On Point, President Trump’s America the beautiful. — Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Paul Lisnek, political analyst at Chicago’s WGN News and host of Politics Tonight on Chicago’s CLTV. (@PaulLisnek)

John McCormack, senior writer at the Weekly Standard. (@mccormackjohn)

Michelle Goldberg, columnist for Slate. (@michelleinbklyn)

From Tom’s Reading List

POLITICO: Trump tries on normal— “President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress was remarkable for how unremarkable it was. Stately, scripted and subdued, Trump delivered perhaps the most traditional speech of his political career on Tuesday night. Sounding much like so many of the other presidents who have preceded him, he drew on history and the personal narratives of his hand-selected guests as he recited a prosaic laundry list of policy proposals, interrupted with spurts of soaring rhetoric and paeans to American exceptionalism.”

The Weekly Standard: Ryan Doesn’t Have to Worry About Trump and Entitlements Just Yet — “Trump has proposed to boost defense spending and offset it with spending cuts elsewhere in the government, in programs over which Congress has routine control. Ryan said Tuesday that Republicans ran on a promise last year to restore military strength, since it was their assessment the Armed Forces had been ‘hollowed out’. But, at least at the outset of the new administration, the health of Medicaid and Medicare—where Obamacare isn’t concerned, that is—seems to be off the table.

Slate: It’s Bad –“Intellectual enervation is a luxury problem. Many in Trump’s America are facing material emergencies such as deportation or the loss of health insurance. A leaked draft of an executive order revealed on Friday would seek to use the National Guard to round up and detain undocumented immigrants, an idea that will spread terror even if it’s never implemented. Compared to this, Trump’s denial-of-service attacks on our attention are nothing. But they have still ruined the daily fabric of life in this country.”

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