Of the Union Address posts of economic success and renewed optimism. Sam is a band this is al jazeera live from dollhouse so coming up after a kartik start interruptions and delays the russian sponsored talks on the war in syria finally wrap our. Two days of fighting in yemen some sessional say theyve taken control of the port city of aden. Gold. Kenyans main Opposition Leader and i loading the declares himself the peoples president. Of the us president has delivered a wide ranging speech to a joint sitting of congress it was dont transfer state of the Union Address he spoke mainly about domestic policy but also mention tensions with iran and north korea plus rivalry with competing superpowers china and russia trump highlighted his successes in tax reform and the need to change immigration laws to protect u. S. Interests. Go straight to our White House Correspondent kimberly how it is now at capitol hill so ive thought if we could first of all go into immigration in a second but overall was this the speech to unite america. Is certainly set out to achieve that but given the fact that there were members of Congress Democratic members of congress who boycotted the speech given the fact that there were democratic members of Congress Sitting there in black to protest some of the president s policies particularly when it comes to Sexual Harassment and perhaps that he has not been says that have enough to that even been accused of that himself given the fact that there were protests outside while the president was talking it was a big challenge for this president to try and one speech heal the divisions of the last year and even of the twenty sixteen president ial campaign he certainly tried to achieve that but sammy i dont think that it was something that he was able to accomplish given the fact that we had the democratic response immediately afterward with the democrats characterize donald trump and his policies essentially bullying ordinary americans so well donald trump tried to hit the high notes in terms of the accomplishments hes done to improve the lives of working class americans particularly when it comes to their pocketbooks certainly there are some deep divisions that existed going into the speech and i dont think much has changed. He was booed as well as cheered when it came to immigration what does that tell us about how things are going to proceed to Congress Going forward and some of the call to action issues. Right because you remember just a couple of weeks ago the government was shut down and we were reporting around the hour about the fact that the big Sticking Point to reopening the government and getting the funding for that was the issue of image. Gratian and were going to be right back there again sammy possibly right before that february eighth deadline once again we heard the president in his speech yielding to the demands of democrats in terms of providing a pathway for those who are children of Illegal Immigrants were brought here to see United States illegally but have grown up here some cases living here for many years working here going to school weve heard the president yielding there but the points where this will be contentious and be problematic came on the issue of funding for that border wall that donald trump has been promising also the promise that he has said in there that he will end the visa lottery and also the chain migration that is very controversial limiting that to just a spouse or a child heres what the president had to say oh. My duty and the sacred duty of every elected official in this chamber is to defend americans to protect their safety their families their communities and their right to the American Dream because americans are dreamers to. So the president trying to unite democrats and republicans because of this imminent challenge over coming to some sort of agreement on a migration but again a big challenge for the president when its not sure he achieves although he certainly put in an effort when he said that extends an open hand to both parties and also every american every background color religion and breed fortunately doesnt seem that the devil that the Democratic Party is receptive to that message right thanks so much can be how could that now that speak to elizabeth anchor in washington d. C. Shes an associate professor in american studies and Political Science at George WashingtonUniversity Good to have you with us so from a political perspective Going Forward do you expect that there will be you know a little more consensus at least on Economic Issues he mentioned a lot of positive data that does seem to indicate an improving American Economic environment. Well i think the question is regarding economics what is being improved and who does it benefit so we do see that g. D. P. Is up employment is down iron excuse me unemployment is down which are positives but wages really are not increasing in the way that trump suggested so were actually seeing widening levels of inequality because many of the benefits for g. D. P. Are going to corporations and to people who invest in stocks which is less than half of the American Population we see that tax cuts that were just enacted by the vast majority of them benefit the wealthy in the United States and benefit also corporations so while the numbers tell one story theres also another story about who might not be benefiting as much from many of these economic policies and i dont think the way that trump presented them tonight will necessarily convince people who still feel that they are suffering from low wages and from living paycheck to paycheck. Presented a rosy picture as you mentioned still a fight to go on when it comes to Immigration Reform and other issues to this speech leave the country particularly the two sides of the aisle in the congress any more closer together. I also i dont think so trumps presentation of immigration has seemed to be a nonstarter for both democrats and republicans especially since he first mentioned some of these provisions a couple of days ago trump is offering to give one point eight million docker recipients the young undocumented workers a pathway to citizenship but doing that at the expense of. Really curtailing a lot of Legal Immigration to the United StatesCutting Family reunification policies and building a border wall and asking the citizens to pay for many of those are things that democrats said that they simply will not support so although he presented it in a much more even keel than were used to expecting from him i dont think that those policies will be unifying the democrats and im not sure and certainly unifying them with his policies and having them reach across the aisle looking at the International Scene does it appear to you like he outlined the face of america thats much more militarized going for was saying hed signed an order to keep one ton of open. Hailing new rules of engagement in afghanistan valuing action against iran and so on and so forth. This does seem to be a very aggressive policy many of these things especially threatening people who dont support the americas moving its capital to jerusalem or excuse me its ambassador residence to drew sloan. A lot of these threats i think are going to be read negatively certainly across the world stage in the way that much of trumps kind of belligerent policies have done to. The u. S. Is relationships with foreign governments across the globe so i think it will probably be read that way in both a foreign context and also in an american context theres certainly a base that is asking for many tough stances tough border walls boosting state sovereignty both in domestic and foreign ways but that is not a consensus driving policy within the nation there are many many people who would also disagree with that all right thanks so much for your analysis on that because of the time because. The economy is where the mentioning on painted more optimistic picture pointed to high employment levels stock market figures. Since the election we have created two point four million new jobs worth of us including two hundred thousand new jobs in manufacturing alone so many thanks after years and years of wage stagnation we are finally seeing rising wages us thank you nope moment claims have hit a forty five year low thanks bring in marco i was brought in washington d. C. Hes the director of the center for economic and policy Research Good to have you with us now im looking at the fact check is already out there online going over raking over what the u. S. President said taking exception to some of the things he said about for example how Car Companies are now opening factories for the first time in decades them thing theyre disputing and so on are interested to get your take on his reading of the economy. Well the economys doing well not quite like he described for example wages during his year rose by zero point four percent they rose by twice that the year before and twice that again year before that so hes basically riding the expansion from the obama years and i should say janet yellen the chair of the Federal Reserve during those years she. Is most responsible for the low unemployment that we have today i think thats very important for your entire audience because people have to know that if you want to see whos what Government Official is going to have the most or officials going to have the most influence unemployment and wage growth and how most americans do its the Federal Reserve and in that regard he got rid of he fired the only woman whos ever been chair of the photos of not just that the very qualified and successful fed chair and replace her in his nominating somebody who is not is qualified and not. Reliable. She was and this is very unusual by the way you know the fed is kind of is a supposed to be an independent and nonpartisan institution in. President s will generally reappoint whether theyre republican or democrat the reappoint successful fed chair is greenspan was reappointed for example or not he was a republican but was chair under obama so you have this is this is something that really makes much more difference to the economy than anything trump has done or is going to do of course the tax cuts really do affect any quality and you know sixty five percent of the tax cut for two thousand and eighty is going to the top twenty percent and more than twenty percent is going to the top one percent. Of taxpayers and so when he says things you know about he said in this speech about all these people are going to benefit from the task well this is really its really screw you on the bottom quintile going to like theres a lot of discussion. Isnt there lets try to move things along to the International Scene and he promised so he said the era of economic surrender is over and said from now on the world should expect a trade relationship with the u. S. That has to be more fair more reciprocal weve already seen them do things like pull the u. S. Out of the t p p what do you think that signals Going Forward for american policy on International Trade while the t. P. T. Was a bad agreement so i dont think any of it was bad for the world and it was bad for the United States and so on that i cant criticize except the recently said he might reconsider that but you know that was not really a trade agreement as most economists know it was more about increasing protections for pharmaceutical companies and for other monopolies it was really a protectionist agreement the u. S. Had mostly free trade with the other signatories anyway it was really something to just benefit corporations it was negotiated in secret it was really something that goes against our constitution in many ways to the way the executive grabs power away from the congress so that was something i think and there was no real benefit for people in this country in fact by the end they werent even trying to sell it as a benefit the majority of americans they were saying right i get the point youre making from the chinese think what does it mean for the rest of the world when it comes to free trade is the u. S. Entering into a more of a protectionist isolationist mode. Well that remains to be seen i mean it remains to be seen in the future agreements i think that again since is wasnt really about free trade and it really was more about protectionism you cant really say that from the d. P. P. But i did say one thing though on the Foreign Policy that i think is very important and here is one place where trump. Did say some encouraging things and i had hoped he would Say Something tonight. On december sixth he said he called for the saudis to and their partners. To end their blockade on food and fuel and medicine has killed thousands of people in yemen and is. Created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and the u. S. Is a major participant in this eight Million People are on the verge of starvation and the United States is refueling the saudi planes and helping them identify targets for bombing that has killed more than ten thousand people and he said they have to stop and then he called a few days later he called for a cease fire and he even told rice saudis that the congress isnt going to support this and so i think this is very very important because this is the worst thing that the United States is doing in the entire world right now this participation in this horrible war and genocide and its been six weeks and so i was hoping that he would Say Something about that tonight im afraid we are running out of times well well have to leave it there for now thanks so much. Now for some other news and russias fonso talks aimed at finding a political solution to the war in syria have ended with a call for elections in the country for the Syrian Opposition a boycott of the event inside she says key demands were ignored no formal agreements have been made either for that it results as though this result the creation of the Constitutional Committee will be handed over to the United Nations the work of this new institution called the syrian Constitutional Committee will be organized in geneva according to the resolution twenty two fifty four of the Constitutional Committee if to be formed comprising the government of the syrian republic delegation along with the wide represented opposition delegation for drafting constitutional reform are still to come on aljazeera drumming up business we look at whats in store for britains Prime Minister is a may on my way to china. From flowing island winds to an enchanting desert breeze. Welcome back well after a few days of snow we are seeing dry conditions affecting tehran in iran weve got little bit of snow further towards the east of afghanistan and moving up towards the hindu kush otherwise weather conditions across the region not too bad you see some snow across northern parts of turkey and into the caucuses but around the eastern side of the marriage very not looking too bad with temperatures there into the upper teens for beirut as we head through to thursday here in the Arabian Peninsula the weather is also looking fairly quiet at the moment little bit cooler than the house being but twenty two degrees is not something to complain about here in tow riyad temperatures coming up a little bit as well so eighteen degrees the high during wednesday and on thursday we should see that talking at about nineteen degrees across the rest the plants are generally looking fine meccas should see plenty of sunshine and highs of thirty degrees into southern parts of africa has seen some showers affecting eastern parts of south africa that continues through wednesday but cape town should be drawing fine heavy rain affecting a parts of angola through some beer towards zimbabwe and mozambique and still some heavy rain affecting the east coast of madagascar not much change expect as we head on through into thursday were looking fine weather conditions across much of Central Africa and it should be fine and liberal in the bomb highs thirty one the weather sponsored by cats on race. Day the scene for us where on line what is american sign in yemen that peace is always possible but it never happens not because the situation is complicated but because no one cares or if you join a sunset there people there are choosing between buying medication and eating this is a dialogue i want to get in one more comment because this is someone whos an activist just posted a story join the global conversation at this time on aljazeera. Youre watching out just zero time to recap our headlines now donald trump has delivered his first state of the Union Address to a joint session of congress u. S. President began with a call to seek out Common Ground and summoned unity among fellow lawmakers the economy trade Heal