Substance
President Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbott both focus on the topic of immigration funding and reform and creating jobs and enhancing the economy. In President Trump's for immigration reform, he announces a four-pillar plan that he and both parties of Congress are working on. First, he is working to give DACA Dreamers a streamlined path to citizenship. Second, he asks Congress to help him pass the funding for a border wall. Third, he is focused on working to switch from lottery immigration, where applicants are pooled and randomly picked, to a merit-based immigration policy. Fourth, he wants to end chain migration. Where current immigrants bring distant family members from abroad into the United States. Governor Greg Abbott as a governor of a border state pushed for an increase for security on the border. He also wants to ban sanctuary cities from Texas.
Both political leaders made the claim that the economic policies that have already been put in place during their administrations have increased economic growth and in Governor Abbott's case led to Texas being the tenth largest economy in the world and is home to the second largest number of Fortune 500 companies in the United States. Texas is now second in the nation in women-owned businesses. President Trump during his first year in office has said to have created jobs, lower unemployment, and has passed tax cuts for small and corporate businesses, which in result has stimulated the economy. Companies are coming back to the United States from foreign soil since he has taken office and President Trump is now focused on better trade deals with foreign companies. President Trump and Governor Abbott both claim that funding infrastructure will increase jobs, reduce unemployment, and stimulate the economy and are pushing for their respective Congress' to pass funding for infrastructure developments. President Trump is currently trying to streamline bills permitting and approving infrastructure and wants a bill to be passed that will cost the government $1.5 trillion to fund infrastructure. Governor Abbott to enhance the economy is focused on pushing for decreased taxes, especially property tax. He recognizes that though he is only a state government civil servant he is pushing for smaller federal government and for state agencies to freeze hiring of new employees to save budget money.
Governor Abbott put much of his focus onto at-home issues such as education and the
adoption system, while President Trump focused on foreign affairs such as the spread of communist dictatorship. Texas cities Dallas, Houston, and Austin are now considered "knowledge capitals" and has doubled the amount of Tier One universities in the state. Graduation rates throughout the state are rising, but Governor Abbott is still pushing for more funding for charter schools, Pre-K educations, and higher education. On the subject of education, he is also wanting better prosecution of teachers that sexually assault students. Governor Abbott is also pushing for greater funding for Child Protective Services and is pushing for Texans to adopt or enlist in the foster home program to give children homes. He also wants to push for legislation that will increase penalties and make it a hate crime to target a peace officer.
President Trump is more focused on foreign policy. Since the start of his administration the United States military has almost eradicated the ISIS threat in the middle east, has imposed sanctions on communist countries Cuba and Venezuela, and has declared Jerusalem as the Capitol of Israel. In response to the looming nuclear crisis, President Trump has asked for greater efforts to stop North Korea from gaining more power. He also is pushing for the passing of public policy that will only give foreign aid to those that agree with the United States. One at-home problem President Trump mentions in his speech is for the passage of legislation that would decrease opioid and drug addiction.
Style
President Donald Trump and Governor Greg Abbott both put people in the spotlight to convey a certain kind of message to their respective audiences. President Trump uses his guest's stories to add a level of depth and pathos to his arguments to show that the policies and issues that he is addressing affect real lives. He uses Corey Adams as an example of an everyday American who has benefited for his recent tax cuts and Special Agent Celestino Martinez, an ICE agent that President Trump uses to show the need for greater funding of border security. For Governor Abbott he addresses certain political figures in the audience when talking about certain public policies to pick them out of the crowd and draw attention to them. He does still use passion in much of his speech like President Trump but use the health and well-being of children as a way to bring to light the need for parents who are willing to adopt or foster children. He picks Chairman Cook out of the chamber while he was talking about fetal rights and Education Commissioner Mike Morath while he was discussing the topic of education.
The speech patterns of both speakers differ greatly in length and style. President Trump's speech patterns contain longer sentences followed by shorter sentences to give emphasis to the points made previously. He also has structure for his call for actions that he uses for almost every public policy agenda. He starts by stating what his administration has already done, then spotlight's someone in the crowd, one of his guests, that has been affected by what he has already done or what he wants to get done. He then describes what he would like to get done in the future and then ends it with a call for action to Congress. His has a quiet disposition throughout the speech and seems laid back in reference to many of his speeches he has done in the past. His speech in total is almost two hours long including the preamble by Paul Ryan and the clapping in between talking points.
Governor Abbott's speech contains very short sentences with long pauses after each line for it to settle in the crowd and for him to look around the room. These long pauses give emphasis to his speech and give the impression that every line is important and requires the up most attention. Governor Abbott splits his speech into two main points, education and the economy. He gives these topics the most time and logical claims throughout the speech, showing that these two issues require greater attention in Texas. His speech is almost an hour long making it half the time of President Trump's speech.
In the State of the Union address of President Trump, it seems that after every well-received point in his speech only half of the crowd would clap. This group of people consisted of all Republicans, family members of the president, and supporters, but very few Democrats. In Governor Abbott's speech, the clapping from the point that the camera was angled at seemed that most, if not all of the crowed were clapping at the points the governor made.
President Trump and Governor Abbott both focused on hot topics of debate such as the economy and immigration, but in all their delivery style and overall subject matter differed greatly. Both push for greater funding of their initiatives and that the economy boomed under their control and that with the greater support they will be able to do more in the future. This seems to be indicative of most speeches by political leaders, that they should be kept in office based on what they have and will do. So, in this instance, they are the same. Their speech-giving styles are very different though in executing this claim. President Trump has a slow and steady delivery of his information while Governor Abbott gives a choppier approach. Though they are both Republicans and have many of the same supporters, their speeches differ in many ways