Subject: BREAKING NEWS: Obama plugs State of the Union address in video trailer
From: "POLITICO" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 2016 16:02:25 -0600

President Barack Obama plugs his own State of the Union address in a video trailer the White House is releasing Wednesday afternoon as part of an effort to set expectations for the president's speech next Tuesday, which unlike previous addresses won't include a new legislative agenda. 

Going into his final year as president, Obama plans to focus more on the big themes that have defined his presidency and eschew a laundry list of policy proposals His explanation: he's got bigger things in mind than Congress, according to details shared with POLITICO.

"What I want to focus on in this State of the Union," Obama says in the video the White House will release late Wednesday, is "not just the remarkable progress we've made, not just what I want to get done in the year ahead, but what we all need to do together in the years to come: The big things that will guarantee an even stronger, better, more prosperous America for our kids. That's what's on my mind."

Standing in front of his desk in the Oval Office, Obama offers a broad preview of what he'll say: where things were when he came in, and how much progress he's led since.

Not mentioned: the Republican majorities in the House and Senate who would have stopped any legislative agenda from moving - especially in an election year- with the possible exceptions of the Trans Pacific Partnership and criminal justice reform.

In an email that will also be distributed on Wednesday, Obama chief-of-staff Denis McDonough echoes Obama's more-optimistic-than-ever theme and lists some of what's likely to be on Obama's brag list: December's budget agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, increased domestic oil production together with new environmental regulations, a peak in high school graduation rates and health insurance coverage, a drop in unemployment, crime and incarceration rates.

"What we have left to do is bigger than any one policy initiative or new bill in Congress. This is about who we are, where we're headed, and what kind of country we want to be," McDonough writes.

McDonough finishes with a plug for his new Twitter account, @Denis44, also inaugurated on Wednesday. His first tweet: "New Year's Resolution: Join Twitter ✓And just in time for @POTUS' final State of the Union," with a link to the Obama video.

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