Senator Bernie Sanders on Trump’s State of the Union Address

Tonight, I want to take a few minutes of your time to respond to President Trump’s State of the Union speech.  But I want to do more than just that.  I want to talk to you about the major crises facing our country that, regrettably, President Trump chose not to discuss.  I want to talk to you about the lies that he told during his campaign and the promises he made to working people which he did not keep. 

Finally, I want to offer a vision of where we should go as a nation which is far different than the divisiveness, dishonesty, and racism coming from the Trump Administration over the past year.

President Trump talked tonight about the strength of our economy.  Well, he’s right.  Official unemployment today is 4.1 percent which is the lowest it has been in years and the stock market in recent months has soared.  That’s the good news. 

But what President Trump failed to mention is that his first year in office marked the lowest level of job creation since 2010.  In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 254,000 fewer jobs were created in Trump’s first 11 months in office than were created in the 11 months before he entered office. 

Further, when we talk about the economy, what’s most important is to understand what is happening to the average worker.  And here’s the story that Trump failed to mention tonight. 

Over the last year, after adjusting for inflation, the average worker in America saw a wage increase of, are you ready for this, 4 cents an hour, or 0.17%.  Or, to put it in a different way, that worker received a raise of a little more than $1.60 a week.  And, as is often the case, that tiny wage increase disappeared as a result of soaring health care costs. 

Meanwhile, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the rich continue to get much richer while millions of American workers are working two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water.  Since March of last year, the three richest people in America saw their wealth increase by more than $68 billion.  Three people.  A $68 billion increase in wealth.  Meanwhile, the average worker saw an increase of 4 cents an hour. 

Tonight, Donald Trump touted the bonuses he claims workers received because of his so-called “tax reform” bill.  What he forgot to mention is that only 2% of Americans report receiving a raise or a bonus because of this tax bill.

What he also failed to mention is that some of the corporations that have given out bonuses, such as Walmart, AT&T, General Electric, and Pfizer, are also laying off tens of thousands of their employees. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex and Huggies, recently said they were using money from the tax cut to restructure -- laying off more than 5,000 workers and closing 10 plants.

What Trump also forgot to tell you is that while the Walton family of Walmart, the wealthiest family in America, and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, the wealthiest person in this country, have never had it so good, many thousands of their employees are forced onto Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing because of the obscenely low wages they are paid.  In my view, that’s wrong.  The taxpayers of this country should not be providing corporate welfare to the wealthiest families in this country.

Trump's Broken Promises

Now, let me say a few words about some of the issues that Donald Trump failed to mention tonight, and that is the difference between what he promised the American people as a candidate and what he has delivered as president. 

Many of you will recall, that during his campaign, Donald Trump told the American people how he was going to provide “health insurance for everybody,” with “much lower deductibles.” 

That is what he promised working families all across this country during his campaign.  But as president he did exactly the opposite.  Last year, he supported legislation that would have thrown up to 32 million people off of the health care they had while, at the same time, substantially raising premiums for older Americans.

The reality is that although we were able to beat back Trump’s effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 3 million fewer Americans have health insurance today than before Trump took office and that number will be going even higher in the coming months.

During his campaign, Trump promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. As president, however, he supported a Republican Budget Resolution that proposed slashing Medicaid by $1 trillion and cutting Medicare by $500 billion.  Further, President Trump’s own budget called for cutting Social Security Disability Insurance by $64 billion.

During Trump’s campaign for president, he talked about how he was going to lower prescription drug prices and take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry which he said was “getting away with murder.” Tonight he said “one of my greatest priorities is to reduce the price of prescription drugs.”

But as president, Trump nominated Alex Azar, a former executive of the Eli Lilly Company -- one of the largest drug companies in this country -- to head up the Department of Health and Human Services. 

Trump spoke about how in other countries “drugs cost far less,” yet he has done nothing to allow Americans to purchase less expensive prescription drugs from abroad or to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices – which he promised he would do when he ran for president.

During the campaign, Donald Trump told us that: “The rich will not be gaining at all” under his tax reform plan. 

Well, that was quite a whopper.  As president, the tax reform legislation Trump signed into law a few weeks ago provides 83 percent of the benefits to the top one percent, drives up the deficit by $1.7 trillion, and raises taxes on 92 million middle class families by the end of the decade.

During his campaign for president, Trump talked about how he was going to take on the greed of Wall Street which he said “has caused tremendous problems for us. 

As president, not only has Trump not taken on Wall Street, he has appointed more Wall Street billionaires to his administration than any president in history.  And now, on behalf of Wall Street, he is trying to repeal the modest provisions of the Dodd-Frank legislation which provide consumer protections against Wall Street thievery.

What Trump Didn’t Say

But what is also important to note is not just Trump’s dishonesty.  It is that tonight he avoided some of the most important issues facing our country and the world. 

How can a president of the United States give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change?  No, Mr. Trump, climate change is not a “hoax.”  It is a reality which is causing devastating harm all over our country and all over the world and you are dead wrong when you appoint administrators at the EPA and other agencies who are trying to decimate environmental protection rules, and slow down the transition to sustainable energy.

How can a president of the United States not discuss the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires like the Koch brothers to undermine American democracy by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who will represent the rich and the powerful?

How can he not talk about Republican governors’ efforts all across this country to undermine democracy, suppress the vote and make it harder for poor people or people of color to vote?

How can he not talk about the fact that in a highly competitive global economy, hundreds of thousands of bright young people are unable to afford to go to college, while millions of others have come out of school deeply in debt? 

How can he not talk about the inadequate funding and staffing at the Social Security Administration which has resulted in thousands of people with disabilities dying because they did not get their claims processed in time?

How can he not talk about the retirement crisis facing the working people of this country and the fact that over half of older workers have no retirement savings?  We need to strengthen pensions in this country, not take them away from millions of workers.

How can he not talk about the reality that Russia, through cyberwarfare, interfered in our election in 2016, is interfering in democratic elections all over the world, and according to his own CIA director will likely interfere in the 2018 midterm elections that we will be holding.  How do you not talk about that unless you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin?

What Trump Did Talk About

Now, let me say a few words about what Trump did talk about.

Trump talked about DACA and immigration, but what he did not tell the American people is that he precipitated this crisis in September by repealing President Obama’s executive order protecting Dreamers.

We need to seriously address the issue of immigration but that does not mean dividing families and reducing legal immigration by 25-50 percent.  It sure doesn’t mean forcing taxpayers to spend $25 billion on a wall that candidate Trump promised Mexico would pay for.  And it definitely doesn’t mean a racist immigration policy that excludes people of color from around the world. 

To my mind, this is one of the great moral issues facing our country.  It would be unspeakable and a moral stain on our nation if we turned our backs on these 800,000 young people who were born and raised in this country and who know no other home but the United States. 

And that’s not just Bernie Sanders talking.  Poll after poll shows that over 80 percent of the American people believe that we should protect the legal status of these young people and provide them with a path toward citizenship. 

We need to pass the bi-partisan DREAM Act, and we need to pass it now.

President Trump also talked about the need to rebuild our country’s infrastructure.  And he is absolutely right.  But the proposal he is bringing forth is dead wrong. 

Instead of spending $1.5 trillion over ten years rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, Trump would encourage states to sell our nation’s highways, bridges, and other vital infrastructure to Wall Street, wealthy campaign contributors, even foreign governments.

And how would Wall Street and these corporations recoup their investments?  By imposing massive new tolls and fees paid for by American commuters and homeowners. The reality is that Trump’s plan to privatize our nation’s infrastructure is an old idea that has never worked and never will work. 

Tonight, Donald Trump correctly talked about the need to address the opioid crisis. Well, I say to Donald Trump, you don’t help people suffering from opioid addiction by cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion.  If you are serious about dealing with this crisis, we need to expand, not cut Medicaid.

Conclusion/a Progressive Agenda

My fellow Americans.  The simple truth is that, according to virtually every poll, Donald Trump is the least popular president after one year in office of any president in modern American history.  And the reason for that is pretty clear.  

The American people do not want a president who is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class, who is anti-science, and who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender, or our sexual orientation. That is not what the American people want.  And that reality is the bad news that we have to deal with. 

But the truth is that there is a lot of good news out there as well.  It’s not just that so many of our people disagree with Trump’s policies, temperament, and behavior.  It is that the vast majority of our people have a very different vision for the future of our country than what Trump and the Republican leadership are giving us.

In an unprecedented way, we are witnessing a revitalization of American democracy with more and more people standing up and fighting back.  A little more than a year ago we saw millions of people take to the streets for the women’s marches and a few weeks ago, in hundreds of cities and towns around the world, people once again took to the streets in the fight for social, economic, racial and environmental justice. 

Further, we are seeing the growth of grassroots organizations and people from every conceivable background starting to run for office - for school board, city council, state legislature, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate. In fact, we are starting to see the beginning of a political revolution, something long overdue.

And these candidates, from coast to coast, are standing tall for a progressive agenda, an agenda that works for the working families of our country and not just the billionaire class.  These candidates understand that the United States has got to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare for All, single-payer program.

They understand that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the top one-tenth of one percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, we should not be giving tax breaks for billionaires but demanding that they start paying their fair share of taxes.

They know that we need trade policies that benefit working people, not large multi-national corporations. They know that we have got to take on the fossil fuel industry, transform our energy system and move to sustainable energies like wind, solar and geothermal. They know that we need a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and universal childcare.  

They understand that it is a woman who has the right to control her own body, not state and federal governments, and that woman has the right to receive equal pay for equal work and work in a safe environment free from harassment. They also know that if we are going to move forward successfully as a democracy we need real criminal justice reform and we need to finally address comprehensive immigration reform.

Yes. I understand that the Koch brothers and their billionaire friends are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the 2018 mid-term elections supporting the Trump agenda and right-wing Republicans. They have the money, an unlimited amount of money.  But we have the people, and when ordinary people stand up and fight for justice there is nothing that we cannot accomplish. That has been the history of America, and that is our future.

Senator Bernie Sanders’ Response to Trump’s State of the Union Address