WASHINGTON (AP) – Two decades ago, President Bill Clinton addressed a nation transfixed by impeachment. He didn’t use the I-word once in a State of the Union address that ran on for 78 minutes.
Now, President Donald Trump prepares to address the nation under similar circumstances, with the added pressure of a looming presidential election thrown into the mix. And no one expects him to follow the Clinton model by ignoring the elephant in the room – especially since he now appears likely to be acquitted the day after the speech.
Trump is hardly the first president to deliver a State of the Union address in a time of turmoil. Abraham Lincoln delivered a written report during the Civil War, Richard Nixon spoke while embroiled in the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford declared “the state of the union is not good.” But Clinton’s 1999 speech offers the most obvious parallels.
A Republican-controlled House impeached Clinton in December 1998 on grounds that he had lied to a federal grand jury and obstructed justice about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
Just hours before Clinton delivered his State of the Union address, White House lawyers opened their defense of the president in his Senate trial. They argued he was innocent of the charges and “must not be removed from office.”