On Wednesday, House speaker Nancy Pelosi told Trump that she would block him from delivering his State of the Union address in the House of Representatives chamber in Congress until the government has reopened. After insisting he would still deliver the address on 29 January, yesterday Trump confirmed he will wait until the government shutdown is over. He said the reason was that nowhere could compete with the ‘history and tradition’ of the House chamber.
The current government shutdown is easily the longest in history and an Associated Press-NORC poll has revealed that Trump’s approval rating is now just 34% from 42% a month earlier. However, 80% of Republicans still have a positive view of his performance, which shows the US is as divided as the UK currently appears to be. 800,000 government workers are still not being paid.
Manufacturing and services PMI both beat expectations by coming in at 54.9 and 54.2 respectively from 53.8 and 54.4 the previous month. This is a sharp contrast between Germany’s readings. Initial jobless claims came in at 199,000 which is much better than the 220,000 expected and represents the lowest reading since 15 November 1969. However, the figures cannot be totally relied upon because of the aforementioned government shutdown.
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