Trump speech guests chosen to help highlight priorities
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is following the playbook for speeches to Congress and packing his guest box with individuals whose personal stories the administration hopes will put a face on the proposals he planned to highlight in Tuesday night’s address, namely illegal immigration.
The lives of three of the eight people the White House invited to join first lady Melania Trump in a guest box high above the House floor for Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress were affected when loved ones’ crossed paths with people who were living in the U.S. illegally.
Other guests appear to have been chosen to highlight Trump themes of entrepreneurship, school choice and conservatism on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sitting with Mrs. Trump will be Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, whose husbands, California law enforcement officers Michael Davis Jr. and Danny Oliver, were killed in the line of duty in 2014 by a man living in the country illegally. The men are namesakes of a bill aimed at stricter enforcement of immigration law that was introduced in the previous Congress. Jeff Sessions, now the U.S. attorney general, sponsored the bill when he served in the Senate.