Good Tuesday morning, I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing, sponsored by the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

And I'm Anna Palmer. We've got a first in playbook. A Democrat running for the House on the Texas-Mexico border is running the first television ad of the year,

criticizing President Donald Trump's plan for a border wall and tying the GOP incumbent to the

president. The ad is an example of two dynamics du jour. The wall is a political cudgel in a tough

district and the type of candidate Democrats are seeking. The candidate, Jay Hollings, who is running

against Texas Republican Will Hurd, is a federal prosecutor who says in the ad that he, quote,

fought the drug cartels and put corrupt politicians from both parties in jail.

Some truth talk on the state of the union. First, it's kind of useless, in part because Trump shares his personal opinions all the time on Twitter.

It's also the height of political theater. There'll be a lot of hooting and hollering, but little actual substance comes out of the speech. And of course, we grade the president no matter who it is on a curve. The president of the United States should be able to knock the state of the union out of the park every single year. You don't get to be president if you can't read a speech off a teleprompter.

But at the same time, it does matter. Let's tease that out a little bit. First of all, the audience.

The president can never reach as large a TV audience as he does during the state of the union.

And the pomp reminds people who is in charge. And of course, anytime Trump talks, people listen. Anytime he acts

quote unquote presidential and stays on script and acts more like his predecessors, all of the pundits

and lawmakers ooh and awe and speculate that this is the time Trump is going to turn the corner

and become a more traditional leader of the free world.

And of course, foreign leaders, lobbyists, and others will parse every word, phrase, and policy prescription like a fortune teller looking at their crystal ball.

Here's what we're watching for.

Our colleague Nancy Cook breaks it down with five things to watch at Trump's first state of the

union.

Will he stay on script?

Will he talk about health care? Will he. Will he stay on script? Will he talk

about health care? Will he say what he wants on immigration? Will he mention Russia or the investigation

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