Trump to deliver State of the Union address on Feb 5

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump will deliver his State of the Union address in the US Capitol on Feb. 5.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to the president on Monday formally inviting him to deliver the speech before a joint session of the Congress. Trump quickly accepted the invitation.

"When I wrote to you on January 23, I stated that we should work together to find a mutually agreeable date when government has reopened to schedule this year’s State of the Union address,"

Pelosi wrote. "In our conversation today, we agreed on February 5th."

Trump wrote back that it is his "great honor" to accept.

"We have a great story to tell and yet, great goals to achieve!" he wrote.

The annual address had been scheduled for Tuesday night but was postponed after a bitter back-and-forth between Trump and the California Democrat.

The feud started when Pelosi sent a letter to Trump asking him to reschedule the speech until after a partial government shutdown had ended or to submit the address in writing. Pelosi cited security concerns because government workers were not being paid during the shutdown.

Trump considered moving the address to another location but ultimately decided to wait to deliver it after the shutdown was over.

The 35-day government shutdown – the longest in US history – ended Friday when Trump and congressional leaders struck a deal to reopen the government through Feb 15.

The State of the Union address comes at a pivotal time for Trump, who will be able to lay out his agenda for the coming year before a national audience amid some of the lowest approval ratings of his presidency. Trump’s poll numbers have tanked since the government shutdown. An Associated Press poll released last week showed that most Americans blamed him for the shutdown and that just 34 percent approved of his job performance. That is down from 42 percent a month earlier and near the lowest mark of his two-year presidency.