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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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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As the below tweet indicates, Mr Trump is tonight expected to continue the tactic employed in his Oval Office TV address of 8 January, in which he painted an alarmist picture of the scene on the US southern border and labelled the situation “a humanitarian and security crisis”.
“How much more American blood must be shed before Congress does its job?” he asked at the height of the 35-day shutdown.
The president still hopes to secure the $5.7bn he needs to get his signature campaign promise built and is set to throw down the gauntlet to the Democrats over the issue once more, again with the eyes of millions of American’s glued to their TVs.
He is not expected to declare a national emergency and Nancy Pelosi, sitting directly over his shoulder, is unlikely to change her position on the matter.
Rather than declare a national emergency, the president is likely to urge a congressional committee to work out a border security deal by that crucial 15 February deadline.
Our old friend Kellyanne Conway says Mr Trump "has an absolute right" to take the more extreme option but would prefer that lawmakers forge a solution together.
"He wants Congress to finish its work and hopefully come to an agreement, put a deal on his desk that he will sign into law," she told reporters at the White House.
While President Trump is expected to seek to strike a conciliatory note with one eye on the 2020 election, his insistence on the wall makes the balancing act difficult.
"I'm for whatever works that prevents the level of dysfunction we've seen on full display here the last month, and also doesn't bring about a view on the president's part that he needs to declare a national emergency," Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told reporters last week.
On foreign policy, the Maduro crisis in Venezuela, the apparent demise of Isis in Syria and Mr Kim are all set to be on the agenda.
The speech was reportedly gone over with a fine-tooth comb late last night by vice president Mike Pence, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, campaign aides Corey Lewandoski and David Bossie and Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union.
BuzzFeed has just published a tranche of internal Trump Organisation documents relating to the proposed Trump Tower Moscow project, following up their story alleging that Michael Cohen was told to lie to Congress about the precise date negotiations with Russia were curtailed.
Robert Mueller himself dismissed the original report as "not accurate" but the news site says the papers "show how secret negotiations... unfolded while Trump was on the campaign trail, publicly praising Putin".
Mr Cohen, the president's estranged former right-hand man, is due to testify before Congress later this week.
The new documents are said to reveal Mr Trump's ambition to build "the tallest tower in Europe" in the Russian capital.
The usual hyperbole or a coherent vision from the former real estate magnate?
Either way, his efforts to underplay the project as a passing fancy look pretty disingenuous.
Back to the State of the Union, where female legislators are being encouraged to wear "suffragette white" to tonight's address as an expression of solidarity.
Potential 2020 Democratic presidential challengers Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Kirsten Gillibrand could be among their number.
Here's Katie O'Malley with more.
"The number one reason the state of the union has such woes is the president," Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Monday.
His adversary has just hit back.
More on what the president might say tonight.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders appeared on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night and said her boss would highlight his administration's achievements and downplay discord.
Despite the shutdown, the US economy did add 304,000 jobs in January, marking its 100th consecutive month of growth. Mr Trump will not be shy about taking credit.
"You're going to continue see the president push for policies that help continue the economic boom," she said.
"You're also going to see the president call on Congress and say, 'Look, we can either work together and get great things done or we can fight each other and get nothing done.' And frankly, the American people deserve better than that."
Another matter the president is likely to claim credit for is the defeat of Isis.
Mr Trump announced with some confidence a week before Christmas that the Islamist terrorist group had been defeated and that 2,000 American troops would duly be withdrawn from Syria.
International military observers were quick to denounce the president’s triumphalism as premature or naive and, on 20 December, secretary of defence Jim Mattis resigned, telling Mr Trump in his farewell letter the position should be held by someone “whose views are better aligned with yours”.
His national security adviser John Bolton subsequently visited the Middle East to reassure the US’s allies in the Syrian Democratic Forces they would be shielded from Turkish aggression, incurring the wrath of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara.
Isis is currently believed to hold just 3.9 square miles of territory in Syria, an area smaller than Central Park in New York City.
But a Defense Department inspector-general's report published yesterday warns the group "remains a potent force of battle-hardened and well-disciplined fighters that could likely resurge in Syria" without an American presence.
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