President Obama will make his seventh and final State of the Union address on Tuesday, January 12 at 9 p.m. ET.
Following protocol, the president was formally invited in a letter from House Speaker Paul Ryan to address a joint session of Congress on that day. It's the earliest Obama will have ever delivered the speech, coming just under three weeks before the process to succeed him begins with the Feb. 1 Iowa Caucuses. It will occur 374 days before Obama leaves office.
Why isn't this Obama's eight State of the Union, you ask? Well, the first year he was in office, following the precedent of modern presidents, Obama didn't make a formal State of the Union address, but he did deliver a similar speech to a joint session of Congress.
As he leaves office in January 2017, it would be customary for the President to deliver a farewell address on television from the White House, and for the next president to make a non-SOTU speech to a joint-session of Congress.
While the speech will be a last for Obama, for Ryan it will be his first time sitting in the familiar position for House speakers over the president's left shoulder.
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