It’s been exactly five years and one month since President Trump last addressed a joint session of Congress, and the biggest story of the week back then wasn’t about anything he said in his one hour, 18 minute stem-winder.

Maybe that’s not a surprise. Such speeches in presidential reelection years are always more campaign kick-off than policy prescription. But what grabbed attention in the first full week of February 2020 was certainly about the speech.

Yes, that was the episode of the original Trump Show when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) ripped up her copy of president’s speech and held up the remains like a trophy. That came after Trump appeared to snub Pelosi’s offer of a handshake when he reached the rostrum.

Ah, the majestic pageantry of the republic.

The larger context, though, was that the speech took place at the conclusion of Trump’s first impeachment trial in the Senate, one day before his inevitable acquittal. Trump had been impeached for trying to squeeze the then little-known president of Ukraine for something to use against former Vice President Joe Biden, who had been the front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. I say “had been” because the day before Trump’s big speech, Biden laid an enormous egg with a dismal fourth-place showing in the Iowa caucuses.

Pelosi had counseled her party to resist the urge to impeach Trump ever since Democrats took control of the House after the 2018 midterms. But she had to acquiesce

© The Hill