Why Trump's Joint Remarks To Congress Won't Be A 'state Of The Union' Address

President Donald Trump on Tuesday night will stand at the front of the U.S. House chamber to address a joint session of Congress, the first of his second term in office.

It looks like the State of the Union, and will be carried on live television, just like those annual addresses are. But it's called something else: a joint address to Congress. And it has its origins in the first term of President Ronald Reagan .

The U.S. Constitution requires that the president updates Congress and recommends policies, although the founding document doesn't specify precisely when that address should take place.

Usually, presidents will deliver those remarks in January or February, reflecting on events of the previous year and outlining their policy priorities for the coming one. The message used to be known as "the President's Annual Message to Congress." In 1934, President Franklin D. Roosevelt began referring to it as the "Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union."

Shortly after he was sworn in for his first term in 1981, Reagan addressed a joint session of Congress, remarks that were called "Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery," according to The American Presidency Project, at the University of California at Santa Barbara.