Trump to give State of Union address February 5

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U.S. President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have agreed Trump will give the annual State of the Union address on February 5, following her postponement of the event from January 29 because of the partial government shutdown, a spokesman for Pelosi said on Monday.

"I invite you to deliver your State of the Union address before a Joint Session of Congress on February 5, 2019, in the House Chamber," Pelosi wrote in a letter to Trump, saying they had mutually agreed on the date.

Pelosi had originally invited Trump to deliver his speech this Tuesday, but disinvited him over security concerns during the government shutdown and told the president there would be no address to Congress until federal operations resumed.

The spat between the president and his main adversary in Congress came at the height of the partial government shutdown that left some 800,000 federal workers without pay for five weeks.

The employees will be paid retroactively, but the disruption caused the U.S. economy to take an 11-billion-U.S.-dollar hit, the independent Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday.

The president had insisted that Congress fund his long-sought wall on the U.S. border with Mexico to the tune of 5.7 billion U.S. dollars, declaring it a top national security priority, while Pelosi and her Democrats stood refused to budge.

Trump eventually blinked, and signed a temporary measure opening the government's shuttered agencies, but only until February 15.

The annual speech is given by the president to outline the administration's priorities for the coming year.

(With inputs from agencies)