What time is the speech?
The speech is scheduled for 9 p.m. (ET) Tuesday. It will start a few minutes after that as the president is introduced twice before the speech begins – first by the House sergeant at arms , then by the Speaker of the House of Representatives Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.)
Where can I watch it?
It will be on all the broadcast networks and cable news networks and their Internet sites. You will not need a cable subscription to watch the speech. The White House will be streaming the speech live on YouTube, and it will be available on demand through Amazon Video.
What will the president talk about tonight?
In advance of the speech, the president said he will focus on what he had done during his time in office and what he hopes to do in his last year. "Since I took office seven years ago in the midst of crisis, I don't think I've ever been more optimistic about a year ahead than I am right now," Obama said in a video posted on the White House website.
Why do it?
Because the U.S. Constitution says to. The Constitution requires the president to, "from time to time give the Congress information on the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." There is no requirement that it be delivered via a speech and there’s no requirement it be delivered every year. That part of tonight’s speech has become tradition over the years.
How has the broadcast of the speech changed during the years?
For many years, the State of the Union was described on paper and hand-delivered to Congress. In 1923, Americans were first able to hear a radio broadcast of the State of the Union, delieved by President Calvin Coolidge. Harry Truman was first to deliver it on television in 1947. Lyndon Johnson moved the time of the speech from midafternoon to later in the evening in the mid-60s. George W. Bush's 2002 speech was the first available as a live webcast on the White House website.
Who will be there?
The speech is delivered before a joint session of Congress, meaning that members of the U.S. House of Representatives and members of the U.S. Senate are invited to attend. Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rand Paul (R-Kty.) and Bernie Sanders (D-Vermont) will leave the campaign trail to attend the speech. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) will not.
Who else is invited?
That’s a long list. There are any number of “special guests” (see the list below), plus the president’s Cabinet and members of the U.S. Supreme Court who, by tradition, generally do not respond with clapping or standing up during the speech.
President Ronald Reagan was the first to invite and recognize special guests during the speech. He invited Lenny Skutnik, a man who dove into the icy waters of the Potomac to save a woman after a plane crashed into the river in January 1982.
Who are the special guests tonight?
There are quite a few invited guests for Tuesday’s speech. In addition to the people listed below, there will be one seat left empty in memory of victims of gun violence, the White House said. Here’s a list (courtesy of the White House) of who has been invited to attend the speech:
- Sue Ellen Allen, of Scottsdale, Ariz., a former inmate and the co-founder of Gina's Team, a nonprofit helping inmates reenter society.
- Gloria Balenski, of Schaumburg, Ill., who wrote a letter to President Obama thanking him for the Affordable Care Act.
- Jennifer Bragdon, of Austin, Texas, a 42-year-old community college student who works full time and is working toward a degree to become a middle school teacher.
- Edith Childs, of Greenwood, S.C., who started the "Fired up! Ready to go!" chant during Obama's presidential campaign in 2007.
- Cynthia K. Dias, of Las Vegas, Nev., a Vietnam veteran who volunteers with Veterans Village, a charity that helps homeless veterans.
- Mark Davis, of Washington, whose business WDC Solar has installed more than 125 solar systems in Washington at no cost to homeowners with good credit. The company does so through tax credits and private funds.
- Cary Dixon, of Huntington, W.Va., the mother of a drug addict who met Obama at a community forum on the heroin epidemic in Charleston, W.Va.
- Lydia Doza, of Klamath Falls, Ore and Anchorage, Alaska, a 24-year-old native Alaskan college student pursuing a degree in software engineering technology.
- Refaai Hamo, of Troy, Mich., a Syrian refugee whose wife and one daughter were killed in Syria. After two years in Turkey, Homo received refugee status and moved to Troy, Mich.
- Maj. Lisa Jaster, of Houston, Texas, one of the first women who graduated from U.S. Army Ranger School.
- Mark Luttrell, Republican mayor of Shelby County, Tenn. He has advocated for criminal justice reform, creating specialty courts.
- Gov. Dannel Malloy, of Hartford, Conn., is the governor of Connecticut who has promoted several Obama administration priorities.
- Braeden Mannering, of Bear, Del., who started his own nonprofit, Brae's Brown Bags (3B), which provides healthy food to homeless and low-income people.
- Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft. The company is expanding access to computer science in K-12 classrooms.
- Jim Obergefell, of Cincinnati, was the plaintiff in Obergefell v. Hodges, the U.S. Supreme Court case that ended with the ruling that said same-sex couples have the constitutional right to marry.
- Kathleen O'Toole, the police chief of Seattle, Wash. Her department received a $600,000 grant from the Department of Justice to expand a pilot program for body cameras.
- Ryan Reyes, of San Bernardino, Calif, whose partner Larry "Daniel" Kaufman was one of the 14 people killed in the terror attack in San Bernardino on Dec. 2. of the December 2 terrorist attack at Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino.
- Ronna Rice, of Greeley, Colo., owns Rice's Lucky Clover Honey, a raw and unfiltered honey exporter whose business trades with Pacific Rim nations.
- Cedric Rowland, of Chicago, an Affordable Care Act "navigator" in Chicago.
- Naveed Shah, of Springfield, Va., is an Army veteran who works with veterans groups in Virginia to help in the transition between military and civilian life.
- Earl Smith, of Austin, Texas, is a veteran who first met then-Sen. Obama in 2008 when he worked security at the Austin Hyatt Regency Hotel. Smith gave Obama a military patch he had worn serving with an artillery brigade in Vietnam that sustained 10,041 casualties and 13 Medals of Honor. The president will donate the patch to the Obama Presidential Library, the White House says.
- Spencer Stone, of Sacramento, Calif, was one of three friends who subdue a gunman as he tried to shoot up a train in France.
- Oscar Vazquez, of Fort Worth, Texas, came to the United States as a child but had to return to Mexico to get a visa to return to the United States and enlist in the Army. He served in Afghanistan. He is now a citizen of the United States.
Who will deliver the Republican response to the speech?
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will give the "Republican Address to the Nation" immediately following the president’s speech.
Source: White House.gov; The AP; history.com
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