marking to come pain that it's not starting today it's already underway it is underway and of course it's going to be a long campaign season in fact we're still hitting for the full day it's going to a iowa caucus. now william i want to talk a little bit about more about what the president had to say about the economy because you really just heard after this point again and again in fact what he called a comeback for the entire country wanted take a listen now to a bit of what trump had to say in the beginning of that speech let's take a listen 3 years ago we launched the great american comeback tonight or said before you 2 share the incredible results jobs are booming incomes are slower. poverty is plummeting crime is falling confidence is. and our country is thriving and highly respected

again. the great american come back alexandra this we kind of had a hint about one the themes would be in this speech but he really did lay out a case that that he has made america great again that was his big promise and 26 team was that was that how you read the speech. yes and it was quite interesting to listen and to watch what was happening at this moment in their chamber because every time president took credit for for example a growing economy or for all for positive things happening in the united states you you could see democrats shaking their heads saying no you shouldn't take credit for that one example when the president was talking about his plan

to introduce or to support a legislation to lower the cost for prescription drugs he was a pull at peeling to the democrats to support this legislation but we have to say that they did introduce only bill so it was every time he was not right or let's say sticking to that effect during his state of the dress there was a moment there wasn't there william where we heard the democrats they were trying to shout over trump and he said something along the lines of there are people in this room that want to take away your health care or ruin your health care and they started shouting you i mean there was a clear frustration among the democrats and so on health care is such a tricky issue for donald trump because it has broad support among american voters democratic and republican voters people want affordable accessible health care which obamacare of the of affordable care act partially gives americans made it a little bit better improves some aspects of the american health care system is

still extraordinarily expensive and is a lot of aspects that the a.c.l.u. has not addressed and donald trump has been in this weird position in in his in his theme of trying to dismantle the obama administration but here is this one aspect of the obama administration actually most americans regardless of party want in some form or another so you have donald trump trying to say he also wants this by. in a different way and it gets rather awkward with what exactly he's proposing while the same time trying as we said setting up for the 2020 campaign. hitting on this idea of socialism the socialism maybe thinking towards bernie sanders sanders or elizabeth warren buffett warning that they're going to take away your health care when of course a lot of these social models of health care are based on some element of socialism in a political system alexander you touched on this and this was one of the 1st moments even before you heard a word coming out of the president's mouth before the speech even started and of course this is

a moment of extreme bipartisanship in terms of where the united states is right now now there is this moment where. of course nancy pelosi the speaker of the house top democrat was was behind trump and she seemed to extend her hand to try to go for the handshake and it looked as if the president basically rebutted that how did you see that moment you were watching there. yes i said before it was a very awkward moment because he really seems to decline to shake her hands she extended her hand and he just turned around so there was clearly a night of snaps and of course we have to add that normally she would introduce him as sort of a speech and this time she just. the president is in the chamber so she skipped this customary celebration or a celebration introductory introduction in this chamber and so both of them. were

clearly clearly showing that this is not a normal state of the union address that we are on the eve of the impeachment trial vote and that is of course something that we have to keep in mind when we analyze this speech and dab was a speech that we didn't hear the i word we didn't hear him in for this entire more than an hour long speech. meant talk a bit about the tension between those 2 leaders because this has been brewing for a long time and not to set this up as some sort of of battle between the 2 of them but clearly there is some sort of real animosity between nancy pelosi and on trial . well we have to say that they did seem to get along pretty well but then of course nancy pelosi ocus waited at the impeachment proceedings and in the house of represent of the representatives and then those

impeachment proceedings and with the peach went the vote in the house and now we have the impeachment trial going on in the senate and. the president and the speaker of the house has not have not been speaking speaking to each other since october so that was clearly the 1st moment. they need in the public and of course they were at war up to think that everyone was watching this moment. come back to you william as we continue our special coverage of the state of the union address tension of course and we always see that during these sorts of speeches you see did the one side or the other who's not in control of the speech if it's a democratic president you see often the republicans refusing to applaud or stand up at certain moments and the other way around and certainly the case tonight were there though any moments where we saw some some bipartisan agreement where we saw

both sides rising up and agreeing on something it was definitely one of the most partisan environments state of union atmospheres that i've seen in a very long time but let's remember that partisanship did not begin in 2016 with donald trump as president america seem at least the political culture in america has been getting more and more partisan for many many years. and i haven't seen so little bipartisan applause as you've mentioned but there were a few points of course anything has to do with america in general american greatness in general american history anytime there's a veteran mentioned or or a child or a student with with with if you're of sorts of many of those kinds of elements where of course democrats almost are obligated to stand up and applaud sort of an american moment not necessarily a political moment on policy trumps a reference to a paid leave for federal workers paid parental leave and wanting to get child care leave or to start childcare for federal workers that got a large

a bipartisan support but it should be pointed out that as democrats that push that . and got back into into a spending bill to begin with and there are a few other moments we want we want to bring in and of course as you mentioned really talking about the economy again and again a big part of his pitch on the economy was trade let's hear a bit about trade and how that fits into his foreign policy agenda. tract unfair trade is perhaps the single biggest reason that i decided to run for president following nafta is adoption our nation lost one in 4 manufacturing jobs many politicians came and went pledging to change or replace nafta only to do so and then absolutely nothing happened but unlike so many who came before me i keep my promises we did our job saying there i keep my promises alexandra trade a big part of president trumps platform

a lot of his promises during the campaign trail and in fact he has done a lot he's been attacking china other than we've we've seen a big trade war happening there and and as we heard there in that clip talking about his replacement for nafta. yes indeed but here again we have to fact check what he was talking about so indeed he was able to get a new deal and you trade steel and replace nafta but still new deal with mexico and canada u.s. and ca it's not so very different from the nafta deal experts say so that it's also something that we have to note and when we talk about the phase one u.s. china deal that the president was able to sign only a few days ago this is just a phase a one trade deal we don't know if both sides are really capable of

negotiating a trade deal that would bring both sides together and that would give president trump what he would like to have protection of intellectual property and better better chances for you as companies in china so this trade deal with china is just the beginning so indeed he is keeping his promises but the question is how huge his achievements are if they are as huge as he claims. and alexander's actually right and with remember that trade doesn't happen in a vacuum it's not just a bipolar world of america and china in fact in this case donald trump in saying he wants fairer trade for america to get a better deal for america is actually hurting himself hurting that goal in his very stated position on bilateralism and kind of walking away from the multilateral world order that we have in you know one example china china is a course

a huge supplier to the united states economy but with the united states not working with its allies on a comprehensive approach to chinese to where china is legitimately stirring rules or there's legitimate criticism about how chinese china the chinese economy affects the rest of the world it makes it much harder to find to find agreement among allies and to really put pressure on china the kind of pressure that donald trump wants and it kind of dovetails into other things that donald trump wants for example in keeping wall way the chinese telecommunications company out of europe by trying to pressure european allies they say no to just say no to walk away but at the same time the united states under trump is not really offering its allies any kind of supporter or equal footing with the way things are going between the european tariffs exactly boeing and airbus was a long standing case of course tariffs in favor of air bus might be coming back the

other way we have to see how how that pans out but indeed the critics of the trumpet ministration will say if you really want to achieve your goals with china you need to work with the european union with japan with the organization of american states really with the entire world so that china can't just say ok well we won't trade with the united states but we can just increase selling soybeans to south america which is exactly what's happened or aluminum which then trump using his favorite tool tariffs will then go after south american countries for dealing with. china for example so it's really an interesting contradiction here that we that we see in donald trump's thinking alexander what do you think the the european leaders staying up late to watch this speech people in brussels maybe even. american here in germany what takeaways or would they have gotten from this speech what did trump lay out here that europe should be paying attention to well i

would say that maybe they were surprised at president trump was not really talking about you as you were p. and l. lies he talked about it's nato and he also praised himself for pressing need to members to increase increase their defense spending and that it's true that he can take credit for that more and more it's more nato and them bers members are ready to increase their defense spending but that was it about what you asked allies he didn't talk about you know the difficult negotiations that are had of the you asked the u.s. and the european union as it made it to happen here sorry to interrupt you because we. also hear we have a sound bite present from discussing nato i just want to be let's play devil's come back to you because i want to see us get that exactly in the president's words this is a trump talking about his efforts to increase the spending in terms of his nato allies

like listen we're also getting our allies finally to help pay their fair share every contributions from other nato members by more than 400000000000 dollars and the number of allies building their minimum obligations has more than doubled your reaction to that alexander. well i mean he took credit for that and that is indeed true because even nato members acknowledge it was president. who was pressing nato allies to increase tourists spendings and maybe as i said don't oppose it if note what was my take away tonight was that the president didn't criticize. the european union for taking adventures. of the you ass with regards to trade and he

was also not criticizing germany for doing that and that's actually what he always does when he talks about the european union and the u.s. allies in interesting point because william you know as you touched on this was really potentially this could have been a campaign ad bits of what he was saying a lot of this was aimed directly his american base potentially that's why we didn't hear him mentioning too much in terms of europe too much in terms of foreign policy a lot of what was in the speech in terms of abortion rights some infrastructure a lot of talk about sanctuary cities and immigration these were very domestic issues we heard about in the speech very domestic issues americans want to hear about domestic issues that's what affects them at home like you just said immigration health care and then these hot button culture issues like abortion like the 2nd amendment gun rights and then some more social issues like education.

education opportunities prison reform these are things that donald trump likes to really take credit for to make him seem a little bit softer maybe to appeal to more moderate or even people more towards the left and foreign policy these days we've seen a huge shift in let's say the last like let's say the last 2 presidents obama and george bush during wars in afghanistan and iraq when they were really at their peak and foreign policy terrorism national security these were big issues in. data showed for american voters and we we haven't really seen that a lot there's more of a generic american standing in the world kind of idea but that's a very slippery concept to grasp that that definitely did not make concrete and do not really detail very much in his in his address tonight in fact there were a few things he did mention this came kind of towards the end of the speech and these could be maybe seen as trumps his own particular brand of foreign intervention this isn't boots on the ground we're talking about

a couple of targeted killings alexander he mentioned the killing of the head of isis al baghdadi and he also then touched on the killing of the top iranian general . yes there that's true he invited to a family of a soldier who was serving in iraq and he was who was killed by a road side bomb that was provided as he said by solo money this top iranian journal that president trump ordered to kill a few weeks ago and he praised this decision as a very important and right decision and showing his ability to keep america safe however we also have to say that critics here in the u.s. and of course democratic lawmakers were afraid that this decision. could put the you ass on the brink of

a major conflict with iran so even though president trump traced himself as a great commander in chief there is a lot of criticism with regards to his foreign policies and many experts even say that his foreign policy is not coherent that he has ambitious goals but he doesn't have a plan how to achieve them. now as this speech was ending i mean with started with with this viral vote moment if you want to mention that with this mr handshake it ended with another moment with palosi we have a bit of video here now this is after the speech was finished nancy pelosi of course was it was handed a copy of a speech and if we have that video there's 2 copies handed one to the vice president one suppose you take a look at what she has her hands are much she does. and she's basically ripping

that speech in half a 1000000 i've never seen such a clear display of bipartisanship in the state of the union address like that where oh yeah right that's a picture say 1000 more. that that says it all where democrats really stand with donald trump remember they are they have impeached him and want to remove him from office let's not forget what is happening in the background here but he is been accused of abusing his hit the power of his office and obstructing congress and investigating that abuse by pressuring the president of ukraine to dig up dirt on a current presidential candidate former vice president joe biden for his own political gain that is where we stand right now that is what almost all democrats and even some republicans they just don't say it rises to a level of impeachable offense say happened and there's very little dispute of those facts is a matter of how much wrongdoing does one tolerate and how do you balance that those that evidence with the rest of the trump agenda and where you fall not supporting

it or not alexander you've seen your fair share of these speeches what do you make of that moment of seeing the speaker of the house take that speech and just just just written. will. the end to action between the president and the speaker of the house highly unusual very we all courts and reflecting of course the partisanship that we are seeing right now in washington we are seeing in congress about of course we have to understand as william just sat that. the president was holding this speech on the all of the impeachment trial vote in the senate that there have been 6 months of impeachment proceedings in congress that we have 11 democratic

hopefuls campaigning they hope to be the democratic nominee to be still not strong so i think it's on realistic to hope or assume that such. such a state of the union address can be as normal as as usual when we consider the toxic atmosphere here in washington i mean it's picture says a 1000 words now there were many special guests invited to this year's speech that's nothing out of the the ordinary but what we did see was a high profile member of another country's government. one venezuela's self-proclaimed president was in the audience president had a message for him here's what he said. here this evening it's very brave man. who carries with him the hopes dreams and aspirations of all venezuelans joining us

in the gallery is the true and legitimate president of venezuela juan boyd mr president please take this message back thank . you see one by doe there in the audience when you see a very firm show of support for the self-proclaimed president now he now now more duro nicolas maduro is the president of venezuela what did you make of that moment there alexandra where you see the president of the united states essentially inserting himself into a battle where you have one country and 2 presidents seems to be an interesting moment there as well. well this was definitely a very interesting moment however we have to say that this battle has been going on for 4 months now and the trump administration promised to help promised

to get rid of my do a promise to help the people of the next 2 to solve their crisis and they're not really advancing here they're really not successful so i thought that was very interesting to see who are who i go there in the chamber and of course it was the trump administration attempts to to show that there are successful but again that is something that we have to fact check once again because the trump administration venezuela pull its policy or their efforts to to solve the crisis and to to improve the situation in the country are not very successful if you compare standing there in the gallery with some speeches he's made back home to his supporters. he looks much more still confident you know so. i do not remember the united states is a very awkward history relationship with latin america and it'll be very

interesting to see how this move by by dollar terms as interpreted there by my dural has often accused of being related to the u.s. or his movement being part of some sort of american coup so we'll see how that move if that helps the ends up hurting him because this isn't necessarily something that bet is maybe on why dollars in google's best interest and you might have seen a space there with an interesting moment to say the least of who. i was and i want to come back to you just just just briefly you've been you've been covering this administration you've been there. what did you think of this speech just give me your final thoughts on what essentially many people are saying was president trump saying i promise i would make america great again i've done it. well it was definitely his goal to picture that speech this way and to once again. praise his accomplishments and to convince

his base and maybe even to extend his face over all i would say that this was a rubber loki's each. i would sunder a phone naaman our d.c. bureau chief covering that speech for us in washington d.c. and we'll you know globe blue cross joining me in studio as well thank you so much to you both for your analysis tonight. all right here's a reminder now the top story that we're following for you at this hour u.s. president donald trump has liver his state of the union address the open the speech by touting economic achievements and he said he'd stage quote the great american comeback trump also hailed wide ranging developments in foreign policy including getting dado allies to spend more on defense u.s. president use the speech to lay out his vision for a potential 2nd term and said the democrats' plan to expand government funded

health insurance amounted to a quote socialist takeover that would bankrupt the country our friends mostly stayed seated during his speech often they were in silence as well trump did not interestingly mention the word impeachment or the trial that is currently going on against him even once during his state of the union address that lasted some 18 minutes here tonight will be a vote on the verdict of his impeachment trial later on wednesday and of course the president is expected to be acquitted in the republican led senate. watching the news from her lens thanks for joining d.w. and our special coverage of this year's state of the union address don't forget all the latest news and information available 247 on our website as d.w. dot com or you can follow us on twitter at d w news on behalf of the entire team william and alexandra and you thanks for joining us.

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politics to flashes from cars like going to top this is where some welcome to the 77 percent. this weekend on the d.w.p. . the power of sports. where i come from i never saw the sun where they. have been going up and brazil my son was. always demanding since the point of his word 1st son is masculine when i moved to germany as a 10 year old i wanted to come to him on t.v. that would change how i see the world because into a month of this family. seeming now with the side of a goodly solar's tyreese upon the table instead of a neat boy's extraverted guy seemed absolutely incredible. i realized how language shapes the thinking how definitions are not only man company may just put our whole

perception of the world. is inside save my life and was one of the reasons i became a journalist i'm a storyteller and i use my words to help with intercultural understanding my name is there in one way and i wear it and to tell people. this is news and these are our top stories u.s. presidents donald trump has delivered his state of the union address his speech focused heavily on the economy saying he staged quote the great american comeback democrats mostly stayed seated during his speech often in silence.