Confront or ignore? What history says President Trump should do in the State of the Union address
WASHINGTON – Fire back or duck for cover?
President Trump is slated to deliver his postponed State of the Union address Tuesday at a time of crises left and right. Yet another former adviser, this time political provocateur Roger Stone, has been indicted as special counsel Robert Mueller seems to be nearing the end of his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. And the interim deal that ended the record-breaking government shutdown – a showdown that damaged Trump's standing and delayed his big speech – expires 10 days later.
But he is hardly the first president to deliver the annual address while under fire. At times of attack, investigation and even impeachment, his predecessors have stood before a Joint Session of Congress to assert their power and try to steady their footing, albeit with varying degrees of success.
The State of the Union was both an opportunity and a minefield for them, as it is now for Trump.
"The stakes are high because things have been going off-rail for the president," says Darrell West, a political scientist at the Brookings Institution and author of Divided Politics, Divided Nation: Hyperconflict in the Trump Era. The Feb. 5 speech could be a chance for Trump to spotlight administration priorities beyond building a wall along the southern border.
Here's a rundown on the lessons of history from three previous presidents who delivered State of the Union addresses at perilous times.
1. Defend
In 1968, Lyndon Johnson addressed a nation bitterly divided over the Vietnam War he had expanded. Political opponents were trying to undercut the Great Society programs he had pushed through in the aftermath of JFK's assassination. Law and order was a leading public concern.
"I report to you that our country is challenged, at home and abroad," Johnson began, striking an unusually somber tone. Then he launched into his standard defense of his actions in Vietnam. The response in the chamber that night and across the country in the days that followed made it clear that he had failed in his goal to heal divisions. He did more to harden views than change minds.
"Generally, the responses were not very strong, not very positive," says Kyle Longley, director of the LBJ Presidential Library and author of LBJ's 1968: Power, Politics and the Presidency in America's Year of Upheaval. Conservative commentator William F. Buckley Jr., called it "a considerable failure politically and personally."
Two months later, LBJ shook the political world by announcing that he would not seek re-election.
2. Confront
In 1974, Richard Nixon touted his achievements in the White House, including stemming the rise in crime, protecting the environment, ending the military draft and moving to conclude the Vietnam War, then the longest in U.S. history. Then he added what he called "a personal word" about the scandal that was on everybody's mind.
"One year of Watergate is enough," he declared, saying it was time for that investigation to end. He also said he had "no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the people elected me to do for the people of the United States."
He turned out to be wrong on both counts. The special counsel's investigation into the Watergate break-in didn't come to an end. The House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment for obstruction of justice, abuse of power and contempt of Congress.
Seven months after his address, Nixon did walk away from the White House when it became clear he was likely to be forcibly removed by the Senate.
3. Ignore
In 1999, Bill Clinton made a statement simply by showing up, defying those who had said he shouldn't deliver the speech, not then. He spoke in the House chamber while his impeachment trial for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair already had begun in the Senate chamber.
He spoke at length, for an hour and 20 minutes, and about just about everything. He touched on the budget, the crime rate, Social Security and Medicare, education standards, family leave, affordable housing, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, gun laws, terrorism, the Middle East, the Y2K computer problem and more.
But here are words he never uttered: investigation, impeachment, independent counsel Ken Starr, Monica Lewinsky. A month later, the Senate acquitted him of all charges.
"The most important thing is to keep doing your job," West says. "The worst thing is to get distracted by controversy and get off message, because if people think you're spending all your time addressing the controversy, they aren't going to think you're doing a good job."
Given his famously combative instincts, that may be a lesson Trump has trouble taking.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Confront or ignore? What history says President Trump should do in the State of the Union address
