State of the Union - live: Women wear white in powerful message as Trump vows to ban late-term abortion
Follow the latest updates as Mr Trump prepares to deliver his second State of the Union address to a divided Congress
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump is delivering the second State of the Union address of his presidency, where he has the opportunity to lay out his vision for the last two years of his first term in office and beyond.
With a damaging and politically contentious 35-day government shutdown having just ended in Washington, the president stands before a joint session in the House chamber — where is expected to make sweeping calls for unity in a time of dramatic division and to promote lofty efforts like the eradication of HIV by 2030.
But, Mr Trump’s audience in the House chamber will be noticeably different from his address last year. Flanked behind him and to his left will sit Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who proved to be a formidable political foil to Mr Trump during those shutdown negotiations last month after her party took control of the lower chamber during the 2018 midterm elections.
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Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a freshman congresswoman who has received considerable attention for bringing young and new ideas to the Democratic caucus, wore a pin highlighting the death of a child in US Border Patrol custody earlier this year.
The president spoke frequently about border security during his State of the Union, but did not mention the child deaths or his administration's policy of separating migrant families that was heavily criticised during the past year.
Mr Trump's remarks on abortion have come under fire by critics who say that politicians should not tell women what to do with their bodies.
Mr Trump criticised Democrats during his speech for pursuing abortion laws that would allow for late term pregnancy terminations in circumstances where major health risks were present.
Among those to speak out against the president was Senator Kamala Harris, who is running for president, too.
Donald Trump has delivered his State of the Union address - setting out how he believes America has performed in the past year. True to form, the president used statistics in places to exaggerate his own performance and the threats the country faces. Here we break down some of those moments.
Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez wore a pin of Jakelin Caal, a Guatemalan child who died in custody of US border patrol.
Donald Trump has reached out to his base of supporters with a State of the Union address that seemed more designed to bolster his chances in 2020 than act as the unifying occasion some in the White House suggested it would be.
Over the course of 65-minutes, the president doubled down on some of his controversial policies and threw in some new suggestions - one of them in particular designed to appeal to evangelical Christians and conservatives.
Read a full summary of the night's events from Andrew Buncombe here:
During his address Donald Trump said: "All Americans can be proud that we have more women in the workforce than ever before." Met with cheers from women in the Capitol, Trump soon followed this with a comment on the number of female members of congress.
There are indeed more women working in the US than ever before, but that is not down to Donald Trump's policies, rather a growth in population.
Women's labour force participation rate right now is 57.5 per cent, according to the Labor Department. The rate has ticked up recently, but it was higher in 2012 and peaked in 2000 at roughly 60 per cent.
Senator Cory Booker, who announced his presidential bid last Friday, said Trump's call for unity was hollow.
"It takes more than a nod to unity at the top of a speech to bring our country together. Our president has spent the last 2 years trying to drive us apart," he wrote on Twitter. "Actions speak louder than words."
Halfway through, I thought I was going to have to concede that Donald Trump had made a good speech. Most of his policies and views remain abhorrent - that should go without saying - but they were couched in much more intelligent terms than any of his previous public addresses....
Read more from US Opinion Editor, Holly Baxter, here:
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