Democrats in the era of Donald Trump are deathly afraid of not getting equal time whenever the president steps up to his bully pulpit. We saw this in January, when congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi awkwardly “responded” to an Oval Office address the president gave without knowing the content of his remarks.
Now we are seeing it again as the hour of tonight’s State of the Union address approaches. Not only will the opposition party rebut the president’s words to the American people. They will feature a prebuttal as well. Presidential hopeful Kamala Harris announced this morning on Twitter that she will be addressing the nation via livestream on Facebook:
NEWS: I'm delivering remarks tonight on Facebook Live ahead of the President’s State of the Union Address. It's critical we speak truth to the American people during this inflection moment in our country's history. Tune in at approximately 7:45PM ET –> https://t.co/J944ScCiVq
— Vice President Kamala Harris Archived (@VP46Archive) February 5, 2019
Harris’s speech will begin at 7:45 p.m. ET — an hour and a quarter before the president is scheduled to speak.
The senator’s address is not the only breach with traditional SOTU protocol. Bernie Sanders plans to deliver his own personal rebuttal on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. The message is to air after the official Democratic rebuttal, to be delivered this year by former 2018 Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.
Despite the timing, some liberals have accused Sanders of trying to steal Abrams’s thunder:
Why is he talking over the black woman our party chose to speak for us? https://t.co/wsn8G3EMwh
— Amy Siskind (@Amy_Siskind) February 4, 2019
.@BernieSanders Senator, this is a bad idea, and it's a bad look. I say this with respect: don't do this. Give @StaceyAbrams the stage tomorrow night. All of it. https://t.co/bamcWGwEtR
— Charlotte Clymer 🇺🇦 (@cmclymer) February 4, 2019
