LIVE FROM CAPITOL HILL
8:45 p.m. Approximately 200 people from three marches-- including members of the ACLU, Working Families Party and Indivisible grassroots-- have combined and gathered outside the Capitol Building in Upper Senate Park, CBS News’ Nicole Sganga reports.
With the Capitol as their backdrop, protesters are carrying pots, pans, umbrellas megaphones and banners reading “We the People.” The group is chanting, “Immigrants are welcome here,” “No walls, no fear” and “This is what democracy looks like.”
Earlier, a band played music. Volunteers are handing out flyers with instructions for undocumented seeking asylum.
8:10 p.m. Mr. Trump will discuss tax cuts and the Obamacare repeal in his speech tonight, according to excerpts obtained by CBS News’ Jacqueline Alemany. And striking a bipartisan note, Mr. Trump will also discuss “working with members in both parties to make child care accessible and affordable to help insure new parents have paid family leave to invest in women’s health and to promote clean air and clean water and rebuild our military infrastructure.”
“We will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars and make our communities safer for everyone,” Mr. Trump will say, according to the excerpts.
“Our economic team is developing historic tax reform that ill reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and will anyone. At the same time, we will provide massive tax relief for the middle class.”
At another point in the speech, Mr. Trump will discuss a repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“Tonight I am also calling on this congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time provide better healthcare,” Mr. Trump will say. “Mandating every American to buy government approve health insurance was never the right solution for America. The way to make health insurance available to everyone is to lower the costs of health insurance and that is what we will do.”
Mr. Trump will also speak broadly about the need for the country and dispense with “trivial fights.”
“The time for small thinking is over,” Mr. Trump will say. “The time for trivial fights is behind us. We just need the courage to share the dreams that fill our hearts, the bravery to express the hopes that stir our souls and the confidence To turn those hopes and dreams to action. From now on America, will be empowered by or aspirations not burdened by our fears.”
12:30 p.m. Mr. Trump is set to deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress tonight around 9 p.m. ET from the U.S. Capitol. CBS News has confirmed that first lady Melania Trump will attend the address.
The president sat down for an interview with Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” which aired in the morning, to preview his address. He told them, “All I can do is speak from the heart and say what I want to do,” and he said he’d be talking about his plans for health care, the military, and the border, among other things.
It’s unclear who the designated survivor will be -- the member of Mr. Trump’s cabinet who will sit out the address in case of an attack on the Capitol. Here’s a history of the designated survivor.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, will bring an Iraqi refugee as a guest to the event and House Democratic women are planning to wear white to the address, which they said is the official color of the suffragette movement.
“We wear white to unite against any attempts by the Trump Administration to roll back the incredible progress women have made in the last century, and we will continue to support the advancement of all women. We will not go back,” Rep. Lois Frankel, chairwoman of the Democratic Women’s Working Group, said in a statement.
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