When any American President formally speaks before a joint session of the two houses of the U.S. Congress, it is considered a matter of great importance to our nation — and certainly ought to be viewed as quite significant by members of Congress. The State-of-the-Union (SOTU) address — regardless of which President is delivering it, and irrespective of his or her party affiliation — is never trivial. When a President gives his or her remarks, both houses of Congress are officially in session at that point and — just as at any other such time — the words spoken to those persons present within the House chamber are to be reduced to writing and spread upon the Congressional Record. This, of course, is to preserve for posterity such historic comments and to make them more widely available to anyone desiring to reflect back upon them. Hence, it is with some surprise that the full and complete verbatim text of President Donald Trump’s February 5, 2019 speech — and, as it turns out, likewise his February 28, 2017 as well as his January 30, 2018 SOTU addresses – are all completely missing from the Congressional Record. So, I did some investigating.…
Read the full story