As President Barack Obama delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, one of the three Republican presidential candidates in Congress will be absent. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has decided his time would be better spent campaigning in New Hampshire than sitting in the House chamber listening to the annual address.
"It's not a snub. He's going to be in New Hampshire, working hard to win New Hampshire," Cruz spokesman Rick Tyler told the Dallas Morning News. "No disrespect. It just is going to work out this way." Cruz leads in Iowa polls by three points over Trump, according to RealClear Politics averages. However, he trails in New Hampshire behind both Trump and Rubio.
Although they claim that Cruz's absence is "not a snub," Cruz's team was sure to take a shot at President Obama. Tyler told The Hill that "It won't matter because he'll be just as disappointed in New Hampshire as he will be in the chamber."
All the other presidential candidates in Congress - Rand Paul, Bernie Sanders and Marco Rubio - are scheduled to attend Tuesday evening.
When asked on NBC's Meet The Press on Sunday, Donald Trump said that he would, for his first State of the Union address, reiterate his plan to undo birthright citizenship so that any children born in the U.S. could not become American citizens, Business Insider reported.
"I want to create borders so that we have a country," Trump said. "Because, right now, we don't have a country. We have borders where people just walk across and do whatever they want to do, and then they have babies and the babies become citizens, and we have to take care of them."
Last week, President Obama released a video trailer to plug his final State of the Union address. Unlike previous years, Obama will not be setting a new legislative agenda. Instead, he will focus on the "big things" that have defined his presidency and what he thinks will make the country stronger and more prosperous, Politico first reported.
"What I want to focus on in this State of the Union is not just the remarkable progress we've made, not just what I want to get done in the year ahead, but what we all need to do together in the years to come: the big things that will guarantee an even stronger, better, more prosperous America for our kids. That's what's on my mind," Obama said, Time reported.
