Obama summons Americans to compromise and change

President Barack Obama will deliver a final State of the Union address Tuesday brimming with optimism – far more than most Americans possess.

Mr Obama implicitly singled out Donald Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, for pointed criticism, saying that Americans must resist calls to stigmatise all Muslims at a time of threats from the Islamic State. “When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalised, or a kid bullied, that doesn’t make us safer”, Mr Obama said.

Republicans were pressing the president to outline a more comprehensive strategy for defeating the Islamic State and preventing terror attacks in the United States.

Claiming that the government have made economic progress, he said anyone who suggested that the nation’s economy was not in decline was “peddling fiction”. “We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion”, Obama said in his final State of the Union Address. “Each time, there have been those who told us to fear the future; who claimed we could slam the brakes on change, promising to restore past glory if we just got some group or idea that was threatening America under control”.

“We also can’t try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis, even if it’s done with the best of intentions”, he said.

Skelley said there were a few times the president sounded disappointed, including, by Obama’s own admission, one of the few regrets of his presidency – that the rancour and suspicion between the political parties has gotten worse. He started with what he called a basic fact – the United States of America, he said, now has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.

Two presidential hopefuls were in the room for Obama’s speech, including Republican U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, was present.

Obama also took on critics who accuse him of weakening American power overseas and Republicans who say he is underplaying the threat from radical Islamist groups such as ISIS. American officials said Tehran had given assurances the sailors would be returned safely and promptly. The development, which Obama did not mention, prompted criticism from Republicans about Obama’s hard-fought Iran nuclear deal, which the president extolled, arguing that “the world has avoided another war”. Trump, in a posting on Twitter, called the speech “boring” and lacking in substance. Congressional Republicans began filing out even before it was over.

However, striking similar notes to Obama, Haley also warned against strident voices in the GOP railing against immigrants and others, a measure of the party’s profound divisions as it struggles to unite to keep Hillary Clinton or any other Democrat from replacing Obama.

Haley added in that we shouldn’t give in to angry voices such as Trump’s.

The latest innovation ahead of Tuesday’s address came by way of a new White House account on Snapchat, where Obama’s aides were sharing behind-the-scenes images and videos of its preparations through the see-it-before-it-disappears app. Viewers watching the speech through a YouTube livestream were invited to return on Friday when three YouTube celebrities quiz the president live from the East Room.

“No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome”, said Haley, whose parents are Indian immigrants. Instead, he ticked off a couple things that bipartisan support might be built on-prescription drug addiction and criminal justice reform-and left it at that.

And he repeated past calls for legislative action on his domestic initiatives that have fallen short, including raising the minimum wage, revising the nation’s immigration laws and enacting stricter gun restrictions.

Predicted those who dispute the science of climate change will end up “pretty lonely”.

“Last year, vice-president [Joe] Biden said that with a new moonshot, America can cure cancer”.