Trump reportedly warmed up for the State of the Union by slamming Democrats — and John McCain

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 6 February 2019

President Trump is expected to use the State of the Union address on Tuesday night to call for unity, but first, he had to get some insults out of his system, The New York Times reports.

During a private lunch with television anchors on Tuesday afternoon, Trump went off on several Democrats, calling former Vice President Joe Biden "dumb" and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) a "nasty son of a bitch," several people in the room told the Times. He also mocked Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), who held a press conference over the weekend to address a racist photo in his medical school yearbook. "He choked like a dog," Trump said. One person he didn't disparage was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), merely saying privately she is nice to him, but publicly, she's mean.

The point of the lunch was to offer a preview of the State of the Union address, but Trump also looked ahead to the 2020 election, and appeared confident that he will be re-elected, the Times reports. He also looked back, telling a story about how angry he was that the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) voted against the repeal of ObamaCare. "By the way," Trump said. "He wrote a book and the book bombed."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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