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Ben Jacobs (now) and Sabrina Siddiqui (earlier) in Washington

Trump claims crisis at the border in Oval Office speech – as it happened

Trump addresses the nation from the Oval Office
Donald Trump addresses the nation from the Oval Office. Photograph: UPI/Barcroft Images

Closing summary

We’re wrapping up live coverage now. Here’s where things stand:

  • President Donald Trump returned to familiar talking points about immigration in his Oval Office address on Tuesday, the first of his presidency.
  • Top Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer also broke no new ground as well in their rebuttal.
  • Pundits were left unimpressed with both Trump’s remarks and the Democratic response.
  • The partial government shutdown will hit day 19 at midnight with no prospect of a breakthrough in the near future.

Join us tomorrow for more live updates. And if you haven’t already, sign up for our US morning briefing for a summary of the day’s top stories and must-reads. Thanks for reading.

Updated

DNC Chair Tom Perez has released a statement on Trump’s speech. He is not a fan.

“Lies, fearmongering, finger-pointing, and a manufactured excuse for shutting down the government. Using the Oval Office to deceive the American people and spout offensive, anti-immigrant rhetoric proves, once again, that Donald Trump is unfit to serve as president.

“800,000 workers are furloughed without pay. The American people are demanding an end to the Trump Shutdown. Democrats have already voted to end the Trump Shutdown, and we’re ready to pass legislation to fund common-sense, effective border security. It’s time for Republicans in Congress to wake up, stop marching in lockstep behind Trump, and do their jobs – the president is clearly incapable of doing his.”

The New York Times reports that Trump was not excited about giving the speech in the first place.

Republican Will Hurd, who represents more of the border than any other member of Congress, expressed his frustration with the shutdown today.

Updated

Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign is already using the speech to raise money both via email and text.

Bernie Sanders is giving his own personal response to Trump and is not impressed.

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel has just weighed in to praise Trump in statement:

Tonight, Americans saw their president fighting for a solution to fund our government while protecting American citizens, versus the approach of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer which is to resist, resist, resist at all costs ... It wasn’t always this way. President Trump is simply asking Democrats to support border security policies they all supported just a few short years ago. It’s time for Democrats to put down their swords and work with President Trump.

Updated

One-time Trump critic and current Trump ally Lindsay Graham praises the speech on Fox News.

The New York Times has a full fact-check of Trump’s speech here. So far they have found one false statement and quite a few that need context.

Updated

Congressman Justin Amash of Michigan weighs in and is just as impressed with the remarks tonight as everyone else

One of the top Democrats in the House has his own response to the speech on Twitter

As the Democratic response ends, a number of observers have the same take on Schumer and Pelosi.

Schumer ends by trying to blame the shutdown on Trump, a reverse of the argument offered by the president.

“So our suggestion is a simple one: Mr. President: re-open the government and we can work to resolve our differences over border security. But end this shutdown now,” said the top Senate Democrat.

Schumer starts by emphasizing the Democratic message:

My fellow Americans, we address you tonight for one reason only: the President of the United States – having failed to get Mexico to pay for his ineffective, unnecessary border wall, and unable to convince the Congress or the American people to foot the bill – has shut down the government.

Pelosi ends her remarks by saying:

The fact is: the women and children at the border are not a security threat, they are a humanitarian challenge – a challenge that President Trump’s own cruel and counterproductive policies have only deepened. And the fact is: President Trump must stop holding the American people hostage, must stop manufacturing a crisis, and must re-open the government.

Updated

Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have begun their response

Pelosi starts by saying: “Much of what we have heard from President Trump throughout this senseless shutdown has been full of misinformation and even malice.”

Updated

NBC’s Katy Tur, the author of the best-selling book Unbelievable, about the Trump campaign, has this analysis:

Updated

Maggie Haberman from the New York Times has some initial analysis

Trump is now sharing a number of stories of gruesome crimes committed by undocumented immigrants inside the United States.

Updated

Trump now takes a different tone:

Why do wealthy politicians build walls, fences and gates around their homes? They don’t build walls because they hate the people on the outside but because they love the people on the inside.

Updated

Trump is now blaming the shutdown on Democrats, saying they “will not fund border security”.

Updated

As Trump speaks, Stormy Daniels is currently folding her laundry on Instagram as Taylor Swift’s “we are never getting back together” plays in the background.

Trump says that “at the request of Democrats, it will be a steel barrier and not a concrete wall” and insists “the border wall would very quickly pay for itself.”

Trump talks of “the cycle of human suffering that I am determined to end” in justifying his border wall.

Trump warns of heroin flooding from the southern border.

Updated

President Donald Trump has begun to speak

He calls the situation a crisis.

Updated

Talking Points Memo reports that Senate Republicans are increasingly open for Trump to declare a national emergency to build a wall. It’s not because they think it would work but simply because it would end the shutdown even if Trump’s action gets overturned in the courts.

Updated

As we wait for the speech to start, newly-elected Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw has tweeted his thoughts about the showdown.

We are 20 minutes away from President Donald Trump addressing the nation about his border wall and the government shutdown. We’ll be following the speech, the response and the reaction here.

Summary

We’re pausing this blog for now. We’ll be back later this evening with live coverage of Trump’s address at 9pm ET. Here’s where things stand:

  • Donald Trump is not expected to declare a national emergency in his speech from the Oval Office tonight. Here are six things to know beforehand.
  • The Democratic response to Trump’s speech will come from Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer tonight. After their response, there will be separate responses from both Bernie Sanders and Rep. Ted Lieu.
  • Paul Manafort shared Trump polling data with a Russian intelligence asset according to a poorly redacted court filing.
  • Democrats unveiled gun control legislation on Capitol Hill today.

Updated

Stormy Daniels will be offering her own counter-programming to Trump’s televised address to the nation tonight.

Mike Pence has been a key emissary between the Trump administration and Capitol Hill during the shutdown. However, as the Atlantic reports, just because Pence is vice president doesn’t mean that people think he speaks for Trump. The result is that Pence has been ineffective and is not viewed as a reliable messenger for the White House’s position.

According to one veteran House Republican aide, it was almost always a “given” that when former Vice President Joe Biden communicated the White House’s agenda to the Hill, Barack Obama would be quick to follow through. Conversely, when Pence communicates the president’s position, “it ends up being accurate maybe 50 percent of the time.” When a president deals more in “spontaneity” than in specificity, the aide added, legislative talks are bound to break down.

The Senate is now at 100 members as former Florida governor Rick Scott has been sworn in to represent the Sunshine State on Capitol Hill. Scott delayed taking his oath to serve the final five days of his gubernatorial term. The delay though dropped him three slots in seniority and leaves him the most junior senator in the chamber.

Mitt Romney’s critical op-ed about Donald Trump in the Washington Post has upset a number of his new Republican colleagues.

Politico reports that Senate Republicans were taken back at Romney’s criticism just before he was sworn in to be Utah’s junior senator.

Sen. David Perdue of Georgia, a close Trump ally, dismissed Romney’s op-ed as an “attempted character assassination” and “deeply disappointing,” dubbing Romney a potential “Jeff Flake on steroids” in his own Washington Post op-ed. Most Senate Republicans won’t go that far, but they aren’t particularly happy about how Romney chose to enter office.

“Everybody’s got their strategy and their tactic. Mine is going to be to try and help the president and our country be successful. Mitt’s got a different take,” Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a fellow freshman, said. “I haven’t talked to anybody that’s encouraged by” his approach.

“The timing was kind of curious,” said new Senate Majority Whip John Thune of South Dakota, who said Romney’s gravitas as a former GOP presidential nominee gives everything he says extra weight. “I wouldn’t have advised him to do it right now.”

Billionaire Tom Steyer “will make an announcement concerning his political plans for 2019 and beyond” in Iowa tomorrow.

Steyer who has been perhaps the largest single donor to progressive political causes in recent years has been mulling a presidential campaign.

Bernie Sanders will give his own response to the State of the Union after Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer do so tonight.

Trump not expected to declare national emergency – report

The Washington Post reports that Trump is not expected to declare a national emergency in his speech tonight. There had been speculation that Trump would attempt to do so in a desperate attempt to force wall construction without congressional authorization.

And a senior White House official with knowledge of the speech said the plan is not to call for a national emergency but to further build a public case for the wall.

“It will not be that drastically different than what the president has said so far, but it’s to a bigger and different audience,” said the official, who requested anonymity to share plans that have not been made public.

Updated

Paul Manafort shared Trump polling data with Russian asset

A new court filing by Paul Manafort failed to redact key information and revealed that he shared polling data from the Trump campaign with Konstantin Kilimnik, who is believed to be a Russian intelligence agent.

The redactions were in a court filing in which Manafort blamed ill health for any inconsistent statements that he made to federal prosecutors and not a deliberate effort to obfuscate.

Updated

Alright folks, that’s it from Sabrina ... I’m now signing off and handing over the keys to my trusted colleague Ben Jacobs, who will take you right up to Trump’s televised address and break down everything in between.

Stay tuned!

Trump's re-election campaign fundraising off primetime address

As the president prepares to declare a ‘crisis’ along the US-Mexico border, his 2020 re-election campaign is giving us a preview of what’s in store ... and raising money off of it in the process.

An email from Trump to supporters reads: “I want to make one thing clear to Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi: Your safety is not a political game or a negotiation tactic!”

It then goes on to ask for donations and emphasizes the need to raise $500,000 in one day for what is billed as the ‘Official Secure the Border Fund’. (Spoiler: It’s really just the re-elect Donald Trump fund.)

Secretary of state Mike Pompeo meanwhile said he has seen Trump’s prepared remarks and expects the president to make “a lot of news”. It almost seems likes this entire spectacle is designed to take over the news cycle.

This seems a more apt take of what’s really going on:

Democrats unveil background checks bill

House Democrats on Tuesday will introduce legislation to expand background checks on firearm sales, giving national attention once more to the polarizing issue of America’s gun laws.

The bill will be introduced by House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Representative Mike Thompson, the head of a task force aimed at reducing gun violence, and former Representative Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head in a 2011 mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona.

March for Our Lives press conference
Parkland shooting survivors hold a press conference for the March for Our Lives movement at the Pine Trails park in Parkland, Florida on 4 June 2018. Photograph: Miami Herald/TNS via Getty Images

The proposal will require background checks on almost all commercial sales, including private sales at gun shows, as well as on other transfers. Its goal is to close many of the well-known loopholes in the federal background checks system that gun control advocates say have enabled those with criminal or mental health histories to obtain a firearm.

While the measure will likely have broad support among Democrats, and would easily pass the House under their newfound majority, it will almost certainly be blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate. Democrats in the Senate plan to introduce companion legislation to complement the House bill.

Anti-gun violence advocates nonetheless hailed the introduction of the bill as a major step forward after years of inaction on Capitol Hill.

The Guardian’s Lois Beckett has more here.

Updated

Eying potential 2020 bid, Kamala Harris releases memoir

2020 Watch: Kamala Harris, the senator from California, released her memoir on Tuesday titled The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

The book chronicles Harris’ upbringing as the daughter of immigrants from Jamaica and India, her unexpected rise in US politics and current policy vision for the country.

One anecdote making the rounds from Harris’ book details the time she phoned John Kelly, then the secretary of the department of homeland security, at his home to inquire about Donald Trump’s travel ban on several Muslim-majority countries.

Kelly, according to Harris’ account, was less than receptive to her call.

“There were a lot of ways Secretary Kelly could have shown responsiveness, a lot of information he could have provided,” Harris writes. “Indeed the American people had a right to this information, and, given my oversight role on the Senate Homeland Security Committee, I intended to get it. Instead, he said gruffly, “Why are you calling me at home with this?” That was his chief concern. By the time we got off the phone, it was clear that he didn’t understand the depth of what was going on. He said he’d get back to me, but he never did.”

Although it’s widely considered to be a platform for Harris to launch a presidential campaign, the senator told NPR while promoting the memoir that she was “not prepared to make any announcement at the moment”.

Updated

Russian lawyer from Trump Tower meeting charged in separate case

Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who attended the infamous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign, has been charged by US authorities with obstruction of justice.

The indictment, which was unsealed on Tuesday by the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, is separate from the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the US election and potential collusion between the Trump campaign and Moscow.

The Guardian’s Jon Swaine reports:

Natalia Veselnitskaya is accused of fabricating evidence in a US money-laundering case she was working on when she visited Trump Tower in June 2016 to meet senior Trump advisers including his son Donald Jr and son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Federal prosecutors in New York said on Tuesday that Veselnitskaya and a senior Russian official drafted a bogus investigation report that she presented in court as supposed evidence that exonerated her client, Prevezon.

The US attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, said in a statement that acts like Veselnitskaya’s “undermines the integrity of the judicial process” and threatens the enforcement of justice.

Read the full story here.

It’s safe to say we know what to expect from both Donald Trump and Democrats in their back-to-back Tuesday night speeches on the government shutdown.

But where does the American public stand?

According to a new CNN analysis, not with the president.

An average of polls found that roughly half of Americans think Trump is to blame for the shutdown -- the third under his watch -- while just 35% fault congressional Democrats.

About 5% think Republicans in Congress are most to blame, which is not particularly surprising given their newfound minority in the House of Representatives. Given Trump is at the helm of the Republican Party, the average taken together shows 55% believe the president and Republicans are to blame.

Trump’s approval rating stands at just 41%, further weakening his leverage in the fight.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming 70% of Americans want the president to reach a compromise with Congress, according to a separate poll released by The Hill-HarrisX on Monday. The latter survey also found that only Trump’s most ardent supporters stand with him on his demand for a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Schumer and Pelosi to deliver rebuttal to Trump

Get ready for Chuck and Nancy.

The official Democratic response to Donald Trump’s televised address to the nation will be delivered by Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.

The move by Democrats to offer a rebuttal came after all major US networks and news channels heeded the White House’s request to carry Trump’s remarks live.

In a joint statement on Monday, Schumer and Pelosi called for Democrats to be given equal airtime. The networks subsequently agreed.

It was not immediately clear who would deliver the counter-speech on behalf of Democrats, but it was confirmed on Tuesday that it will be none other than Schumer and Pelosi themselves.

The two leaders will speak to cameras from the US Capitol.

Negotiations between the White House and Democrats in Congress over reopening the government remained at a standstill this week.

Democrats have maintained they will not support any legislation that allocates funding toward Trump’s border wall. The president has meanwhile refused to budge from his demand that the wall be built.

Little is expected to change following Tuesday’s dueling speeches to the American public.

Updated

Speaking of presidential addresses, the decision by networks and cable news channels to carry Trump’s speech live has been met with criticism from some corners.

Given the political nature of the president’s argument -- and the likelihood that his remarks will be replete with false or misleading claims -- some lashed out at the networks for giving Trump the airtime simply because he requested it.

Late night host Seth Meyers joined the chorus, stating in his show on Monday that the president “wants a primetime address to repeat his lies”.

“First of all, just because Trump wants to address the nation doesn’t mean networks should air it,” Meyers said. “Otherwise, they’re just passing on his lies unfiltered. They should either reject him outright, or if he insists on speaking in primetime, make him do it as a contestant on The Masked Singer.”

Others can’t help but point out that when Barack Obama took to the airwaves to present his plan for comprehensive immigration reform in 2014, he was rebuffed by the major US television networks. (At the time, a network insider explained that the content of Obama’s speech was “overtly political”.)

Some media reporters have said the Obama White House did not make a formal request at the time. Former Obama aides have countered they did not feel such a step was necessary.

In any case, Trump’s speech will be inherently political since its purpose is to defend his position in favor of a border wall in the midst of a government shutdown caused by an impasse over that precise demand.

The networks have agreed to air a formal response by Democrats to lend balance to the debate.

Mike Pence struggles to defend Trump's claims on border wall

You may have heard Donald Trump claim that previous presidents told him they should have built a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Here’s the moment in all its glory:

Well, you may not believe it, but it turns out literally none of Trump’s living predecessors made any such statement. The offices of former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have all publicly denied that a conversation about the merits of a border wall took place.

Vice president Mike Pence, ever the faithful employee of his boss, struggled to explain the basis of Trump’s claim in an interview with NBC’s Today show on Tuesday.

“I know the president has said that was his impression from previous presidents,” Pence said.

“I know I’ve seen clips of previous presidents talking about the importance of border security and talking about the issue of illegal immigration.”

When pressed by NBC’s Hallie Jackson on how that obviously differs from Trump’s predecessors telling him they regretted not building a border wall, Pence again deflected: “Look, honestly the American people want us to address this issue.”

It’s too bad there’s no ‘Phone-a-Friend’ option in live interviews.

As Trump prepares for his first Oval Office address as president, it might be pertinent to take a trip down memory lane and revisit how his predecessors treated such moments.

While it may be a rite of passage to address the nation from the iconic, oval-shaped room, the use of the Oval Office by presidents to make a primetime speech is an increasingly rare occurrence.

And when the Oval Office is deployed for formal remarks, it typically connotes a major event that transcends political lines.

Trump, of course, is planning a speech for expressly political motives. The president will make the case for building a wall along the US-Mexico border after Democrats rebuffed his demand in what ultimately led to the third government shutdown under Trump’s watch.

As the shutdown enters its 18th day, Trump is hoping the gravitas of the Oval Office will help bolster his unfounded claim that there is an ‘emergency’ at the border -- the solution to which just so happens to be none other than his promised wall.

In 2010, Barack Obama used his first Oval Office address as president to lay out his response to the catastrophic BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He returned to the format that same year to announce the end of US combat operations in Iraq and only once more, in 2015, to discuss terrorism.

Barack Obama announces end of US combat operations in Iraq from the Oval Office on 31 August 2010.

If we go even further back in history, the Oval Office has been used for such historic moments as John F Kennedy discussing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and Lyndon B. Johnson declaring in 1968 that he would not seek re-election. Richard Nixon famously announced his resignation as president from the Oval Office following the Watergate scandal in 1974.

White House officials are billing Trump’s speech to be roughly seven minutes in length. That is, of course, if he sticks to script ... which has not always been his forte. All of the major US networks and news channels will carry the president’s remarks, which will be followed by a televised response from Democrats.

So will it be history-in-the-making or just another episode of Trump’s reality TV presidency? We’ll find out at 9 p.m., but I’m going to go out on a limb and say not much will change.

Trump to declare 'crisis' at US-Mexico border

Donald Trump will argue in a nationwide address on Tuesday that the US-Mexico border is in a state of “crisis” that necessitates the wall he has long promised to build.

The speech, which will mark Trump’s first from the Oval Office as president, comes as about 800,000 federal workers remain without pay amid a partial shutdown of the US government.

Key parts of the government shut down on 22 December 2018 after Democrats and Trump reached a gridlock over the president’s demand for $5.7bn in funding for the border wall.

Trump upped the ante this week by preparing to address the nation at 9pm on Tuesday. His remarks from the Oval Office will be carried by all major US broadcast networks and cable news channels.

Previewing Trump’s comments, the vice-president, Mike Pence, told reporters “there is a humanitarian and national security crisis” at the border.

“The passion you hear from President Trump, his determination to take this case to the American people, as he will tonight in his national broadcast from the Oval Office, comes from this president’s deep desire to do his job to protect the American people,” Pence added during an appearance on ABC’s Good Morning America.

Immigration experts argue otherwise, pointing out that the rate of illegal border crossings has been in decline over the past decade. Last year, the population of undocumented immigrants in the US reached a 12-year low.

Trump is nonetheless seeking to gain political leverage over Democrats as the closure of the federal government entered its 18th day, making it the third-longest shutdown on record.

Democrats have insisted they will not hedge on their opposition to the wall and will start passing legislation in the House of Representatives this week aimed at reopening parts of the government. The bills are expected to be blocked by Senate Republicans, who have so far supported the president in his quest for wall funding.

Updated

Good morning everyone! Sabrina Siddiqui here, planning to take you through what promises to be yet another action-packed day.

The big event: Donald Trump will deliver a primetime address laying out the justification (or so he says) for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border.

The president’s comments will come as the shutdown of the US government enters its 18th day. Democrats are meanwhile planning a rebuttal to Trump’s speech, and suddenly it’s starting to feel like the State of the Union came early this year. (That one actually is coming up on 29 January, but more on that later...)

All of which is to say, watch this spot for key updates and analysis as the day goes on.

Updated

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