President Trump addresses a joint session of Congress tonight, after igniting a trade war with Canada, Mexico and China and cutting off military aid to Ukraine. Some Democrats in Congress say they will boycott the speech, to protest what they call President Trump’s "destruction of the state of the union.”

One local progressive Democrat, Oakland Congresswoman Lateefah Simon, has been tabbed to deliver the Working Families Party response to the presidential address, though the official Democratic response is coming from Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin. President Trump is expected to defend, or probably more accurately considering this is Trump, trumpet his tariff policy, his split with Ukraine, and Elon Musk’s systematic dismantling of the federal bureaucracy.

For more, KCBS Radio news anchors Patti Reising and Bret Burkhart and KCBS political reporter Doug Sovern spoke with David McCuan, political science professor at Sonoma State University.