The word “impeachment” is not in US President Donald Trump’s third State of the Union address, according to the White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley.

“I’ve read through the speech and I’ve not seen the word impeachment,” Gidley told reporters at the White House. “As he likes to say, we’ll see what happens. But I haven’t seen it.”

Advertisement

Gidley said Trump is “intimately involved” in crafting the speech, which will begin around 9 pm on Tuesday (0200 GMT).

The president is expected to address economy, work-family issues, health care costs, immigration, and national security, according to a senior administration official.

Several Democratic lawmakers plan to boycott the speech.

Trump will not be the first US president to deliver a State of the Union address in the middle of a Senate impeachment trial.

The 100 members of the Senate have been sitting silently for six days listening to impassioned arguments for and against Trump’s removal from office for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Democrats have been pressing for the Senate to subpoena Bolton, who was fired by Trump in September, after reports that his upcoming White House tell-all book corroborates the abuse-of-power impeachment charge against the president over his dealings with Ukraine.

On January 7, Bolton had said that he is willing to testify in the expected Senate impeachment trial of the president, a surprise development that could complicate a weeks-long dispute over how the trial would play out.

Earlier, Bolton was so alarmed by a White House–linked effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats, he told aide Fiona Hill to alert the National Security Council’s chief lawyer.

After a months-long proceeding, final votes on articles of impeachment against Trump will be held Wednesday afternoon in the Republican-controlled Senate amid wide expectations that Trump will be acquitted.

Gidley said on Tuesday that there may be “an announcement or a statement or two” after the votes.

The House, controlled by Democrats, impeached Trump in December last year for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, charges that the White House has refused.

On December 18, President Trump was formally impeached in a historic vote in the House of Representatives.

In September, the impeachment inquiry, which Nancy Pelosi initiated over a complaint by an anonymous whistleblower, is looking into White House’s alleged efforts to withhold military aid to have Ukraine investigate a Trump’s political rival, Joe Biden.

Democrats are hoping their arguments will at least persuade some Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate, to support their call to issue subpoenas next week for four top current and former Trump aides to testify, and for internal White House records about the Ukraine affair.

(With inputs from agency)