Live updates: Watch as Trump gives State of the Union speech

Grace Eliza Goodwin
Reporting from New York

Image source, Getty Images

Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger will be giving the Democratic Party’s official rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address tonight.

She will be speaking from Colonial Williamsburg, an outdoor museum covering America’s history as a British colony on the current-day US east coast.

The rebuttal is a tradition dating back to 1966 in which a prominent member of the opposition party delivers a formal, televised counter-argument following the president’s annual message.

Members of Spanberger’s team say she will speak about “the chaos” Trump has unleashed during his second term. The location, they say, was a “specific decision” that speaks to America’s 250th anniversary this year, which is also a theme of Trump’s speech.

A former CIA officer and three-term congresswoman, Spanberger, 46, ran for governor on a platform focused on increasing affordability. In January, she became the first female governor of Virginia after having won by the largest margin for a Democratic candidate in the state in six decades.

“She knows Americans want lower costs, safer communities, and a stronger democracy — not chaos and corruption,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said last week.

“Gov Spanberger will lay out a clear path forward: lower everyday costs, protect healthcare, and defend the freedoms that define who we are as a nation,” Schumer added.