By Uche Mbah
Hours after President Donald Trump of the United States gave his controversial State of the Nation Address, the US Senate voted to acquit him of impropriety in his actions as President.
The Congress, headed by Nancy Pelosi, had impeached him, but delayed the handing over of the impeachment file to the Senate for trial. When they finally handed it over, they requested to call additional witnesses, but the Senate voted against the invitation of witnesses. This is the first impeachment without witnesses called.
The House has a majority of Democrats, while the Senate has a majority of Republicans.The republicans in the senate gave him their block vote, except for Mitt Romney who broke ranks and voted against his party. He is the first senator of the same party to vote against his party in an impeachment. Trump is the third American President to be impeached, and Romney contested against him during the nomination period.
Hours earlier, in the same chamber that the impeachment votes were held, Trump addressed the nation in his third State of the Nation Address, but it turned out to be one of the most divisive state of the Nation Addresses. While trump appeared to have snubbed the Speaker of the house, a visibly angry Pelosi tore her own copy of his speech to shreds calling it a compilation of “untruths”.
Analysts however see the act as aggression taken too far. The state of the nation speech is a national document and not a personal document of Donald Trump.With Trump’s sympathy votes appearing to increase, and the economy making a comeback-unemployment figures has plummeted-it may well happen that, with his current approval rate at 49% from 42%, Trump may also garner sympathy vote from the electorates if he stays on the theme of witch hunt in his campaign.
The Democratic hard line position against him may work in his favor.
