Should the State of the Union Address be considered "under oath"?

[LakeSuperiorView]

We have never had a president that lies constantly like Trump does. His fucking tweets, I can see those being considered informal, so not under oath. But the SOTU Address is the most formal communication the President delivers. Should there not be consequences for lying in this speech?

[guillaumeb]

1. 30 minutes of complete silence?

Except for the constant sniffling.

[LakeSuperiorView]

3. Members of Congress, distingushed guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, - I plead the fifth.

under the advice of my lawyers.

Thank you, and dog bless.

[guillaumeb]

4. Perfect.

Followed by 30 minutes of Democratic rebuttal.

[pwb]

2. We expect the truth. But Trump cant help himself.

It is sad for sure. i won't watch or listen to it because of the lies. I have lost life long friends because i caught them in lies.

[Buckeyeblue]

5. Maybe Congress should just ask for a written statement

And forgo the speech. No one wants to hear it.

[Va Lefty]

6. We need somebody to pull a Joe Wilson!

"You lie!"

[johnp3907]

12. On one hand I don't want democrats to behave the way republicans do.

On the other hand there’d be so many “you lies!” flying around no one would be able to hear what Trump is saying, so that would be a bonus!


(Pedantic side note: Wilson’s “you lie” wasn’t yelled during a State Of The Union address)

[Judi Lynn]

15. I think it was. It keeps rerunning in my mind all these years later, too.

Absolutely odious. Have never felt such shock, or heard such blatant, hateful racism flung at anyone in my life.

No one sane has ever accused President Obama of "misspeaking." Not ever. That was a complete shock.

I just checked his name in google a moment ago, wishing I had the nerve to finally tell him how loathsome I think he is, and did see this predictably bogus Tweet posted there:

Link to tweet

In solidarity with furloughed employees, I will not be accepting my pay for as long as the government remains shut down. It is simply wrong for Members of Congress to receive pay during this time.



(Luckily, I did see a couple of posters did take the time to remind him of what he did to President Obama, among the answers. If only he would see them personally instead of having them deleted by his staff, no doubt, before he ever looks at them.)

[DURHAM D]

7. Will Putin be in balcony with Melania? nt

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

8. No. That's a pretty silly suggestion.

[LakeSuperiorView]

9. Do you have anything to bring to the conversation other than insults?

[Igel]

10. Sometimes it's just snark.

But no, the SOTU speech is not under oath and should not be.

There are political consequences. We might not like them, but that doesn't mean we should be willfully blind to them.

The OP conflates political with legal repercussions, which is a leitmotif in the last two years as we merge the two as though we weren't even a first- or second-rate banana republic, but a third-rate one. If there's an overlap, it should follow from what things are properly legal and what things are properly political and where they just happen to meet. There should not be an attempt to force them to overlap so that the legal system serves politics (except in the trite sense that the legal system will serve the country that a political system is over).

It's like politics and economics. You mix them and just sit back with popcorn to wait for things to start going horribly, horribly wrong.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

16. Thank you Igel.

To consider things to be said under oath when they are not, is dumb. And shows a real lack of understanding of such things.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

11. No, of course not. And a SOTU speech isn't even required.

The Constitution requires the President to periodically "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." Woodrow Wilson was the first president to give a SOTU address; before that the president submitted only a written report. In modern times it's mainly a statement of the president's policy initiatives and is therefore a political statement and not one that was ever intended to be given under oath.

[benld74]

13. WHY? He's already taken the oath of office,,

And has been pissin and crappin over everything and everyone since

[SeattleVet]

14. You don't have to be under oath to run afoul of the law.

"Under the United States Code, title 18, section 1001, a person who knowingly or willingly makes a material statement that is false, or fraudulent, to the feds, is guilty of a crime. What comes as a surprise to many is that unlike section 1621, section 1001 does not require that a person be under oath."

https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2017/03/what-are-the-penalties-for-lying-to-congress.html

I can only imagine what a beautiful sight it would be, seeing him placed into handcuffs and frogmarched off in the middle of the SOTU to be prosecuted for the lies that he was spewing!