WASHINGTON (WCBS 880/AP) — Facing a divided Congress for the first time, President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Washington to govern "not as two parties, but as one nation" — a message that clashed with the rancorous atmosphere in the nation's capital after the longest government shutdown in history.
Entering the House Chambers to a round of applause, Trump began his speech by calling for bipartisanship.
"The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican agenda or a Democrat agenda. It is the agenda of the American people," Trump said. “We must choose between greatness or gridlock, results or resistance, vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction."
Trump, who has spent two years leveling fiercely personal attacks on his Democratic rivals, declared that it was time "to bridge old divisions, heal old wounds, build new coalitions, forge new solutions and unlock the extraordinary promise of America's future."
Trump's speech to lawmakers and the nation comes at a critical moment in his presidency. He pushed his party into a lengthy government shutdown over border security, only to cave to Democrats. With another shutdown deadline looming, the president has few options for getting Congress to fund a border wall, and he risks further alienating his party if he tries to circumvent lawmakers by declaring a national emergency instead.
As he stood before lawmakers, the president was surrounded by symbols of his emboldened political opposition. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was praised by Democrats for her hardline negotiating during the shutdown, sat behind Trump as he spoke. House Democratic women created a sea of white, donning the color favored by early 20th-century suffragettes. And several senators running for president were also in the audience, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.
Though, that did not stop him from touting the accomplishments of his administration.
"The U.S. economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office, and we are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world," the president said.
He added that the “State of our Union is strong” to a standing ovation and chants of “U.S.A.” from Republicans in the chamber — though Democrats did not cheer.
Taking a brief dig at special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, President Trump claimed, “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigations.”
After touting the passage of the bipartisan First Step Act, a criminal justice reform act, Trump immediately renewed his call for a border wall at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The border wall has been a key issue for President Trump, who ran his 2016 presidential campaign on the promise to secure the southern border. His inability to secure $5.7 billion for border wall funding prompted a partial government shutdown on Dec. 22, 2018, which then became the longest shutdown in U.S. history at 35 days.
A short-term resolution was passed to fund the government until Feb. 15, but President Trump continues to call for funding for a steal wall at the border. It’s unclear if he will declare a state of emergency to secure the funds.
"Tonight, I am asking you to defend our very dangerous southern border out of love and devotion to our fellow citizens and to our country," Trump said. He claimed wealthy and powerful people keep walls around their houses to protect from intruders.
He then pivoted to discussing the victims of crime by illegal migrants.
Shortly after, the president received a shocking round of applause of Democrats as he touted the fact that women filled 58 percent of the new jobs created in the last year.
“All Americans can be proud that we have more women serving in Congress than ever before,” Trump said after joking to the group of female Democratic representatives that they’d want to remain standing.
However, the atmosphere in the room took a dramatic turn as the president called on Congress to pass the United States Reciprocal Trade Act, "so that if another country places an unfair tariff on an American product, we can charge them the exact same tariff on the same product that they sell to us."
Democrats also remained silent as Trump called on Congress to pass legislation to prohibit late-term abortion.
He pointed to New York, which recently passed legislation that would allow a mother to have an abortion in the second or third trimester in the event of a serious medical emergency.
Trump falsely claimed the legislation “would allow a baby to be ripped from the mother's womb moments before birth.”
President Trump then addressed the fact that the United States had pulled out of a landmark arms treaty with Russia and also announced a second summit with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-Un at the end of the month.
"If I had not been elected President of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea," Trump claimed, while adding his relation with the North Korean leader "is a good one."
He said that he will meet with Kim on Feb. 27 and 28 in Vietnam.
Turning to foreign policy, another area where Republicans have increasingly been willing to distance themselves from the president, Trump defended his decisions to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan.
"Great nations do not fight endless wars," he said, adding that the U.S. is working with allies to "destroy the remnants" of the Islamic State group and that he has "accelerated" efforts to reach a settlement in Afghanistan.
IS militants have lost territory since Trump's surprise announcement in December that he was pulling U.S. forces out, but military officials warn the fighters could regroup within six months to a year of the Americans leaving. Several leading GOP lawmakers have sharply criticized his plans to withdraw from Syria, as well as from Afghanistan.
Trump's guests for the speech include Anna Marie Johnson, a woman whose life sentence for drug offenses was commuted by the president, and Joshua Trump, a sixth-grade student from Wilmington, Delaware, who has been bullied over his last name. They sat with first lady Melania Trump during the address.
(© 2019 WCBS 880. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)