TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Sanders Responds to Trump’s Congressional Address

It is not just to try to divide us up. It is more than that. It is a masterful effort, and you saw that tonight, to deflect attention away from the most important issues facing the people of our country. Issues that Trump and his billionaire friends do not want to address because it is not in their financial interests to do so.

Trump gave his State of the Union speech tonight. But if you listen closely, that speech had very little to say about the State of the Union. About what is really going on in our country, especially for working families.

Trump spoke for over 90 minutes, although I must confess it seemed a lot longer than that, and he almost completely ignored the issues that are keeping working people up at night as they worry about how their families are going to survive in these very tough times.

A Government of Billionaires

And I will tell you exactly why Trump had very little to say about the real crises facing the working class of this country. Think back six weeks ago when Trump was inaugurated for a second term as president, just six weeks ago. Standing right behind him were the three wealthiest men in this country, Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos, and Mr. Zuckerberg. And standing behind them were 13 other billionaires who Trump had nominated to head major government agencies. Many of these same billionaires, including Musk, were in the Capitol tonight listening to that speech.

In other words, it is there for all to see. The Trump administration is not hiding it. The Trump administration is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class, and for the billionaire class. Not withstanding some of their rhetoric, this is a government that could care less about ordinary Americans and the working families of our country.

My friends, we are no longer moving toward oligarchy, we are living in an oligarchic society.

The Real State of the Union

Now let’s take a moment and try to escape from Trump’s parallel universe, the universe that you heard tonight, and let’s do something really, really radical. Let’s actually take a hard look at the problems that Americans are facing.

Today, sixty percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Unlike Trump, I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck, and I know something about that reality. It means that every day, every day, millions of Americans worry about how they’re going to pay their rent, pay for childcare, pay for a doctor’s visit when they get sick. They worry about what happens when their car breaks down, and they can’t afford the thousand bucks it costs to get it fixed, and what happens when they can’t get to work because they don’t have a car. They worry about how they can afford to buy healthy food for their kids when the price of food is off the charts.

Funny, I heard Trump speaking for 90 minutes tonight. I didn’t hear one word from him about the economic reality facing sixty percent of our people, or the enormous stress that they are living under. Ninety-minute speech, not one word about the economic reality facing American workers.

Health Care Crisis Ignored

But that’s not all. Today in America, everyone knows that our health care system is broken. It is dysfunctional, and it is outrageously expensive. We remain the only wealthy nation on earth not to guarantee health care for all.

Mr. President, you really want to make America great again? Then make sure that every American, regardless of income, can go to a doctor or a hospital and not worry about how they’re going to pay the bills. President Trump, health care is a human right.

I didn’t hear one word from you, not one word, over 90-minute speech, not one word from you about the health care crisis that is impacting many, many millions of our people. Nor did I hear you say why we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs, sometimes ten times more than the people in other countries, and why one out of four Americans are unable to afford the prescriptions their doctors prescribe. Not one word about the outrageously high cost of prescription drugs.

Housing and Inequality

Mr. President, we have nearly 800,000 Americans who are homeless. Over 20 million of our people spend more than half of their limited income on housing. We have a major housing crisis in America. Everyone knows it, apparently, except you, because in your speech tonight, I didn’t hear you mention the housing crisis.

Today in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we’ve ever had. Three richest people in America, the folks Trump invited to stand behind him at his inauguration, now own more wealth than the bottom half of our society, a hundred and seventy million Americans. Did anyone out there hear one word from the President of the United States on that enormously important issue, which gets to the very fabric of our society? So few owning so much, while so many people suffer.

And here’s something else the President forgot to discuss. Not only is our life expectancy four years lower than other wealthy countries, the bottom 50% in this country, the working class of America, on average live seven years shorter lives than the top 1%. Got that? In other words, being poor or working class in this country today is a death sentence. Did you hear any discussion tonight as to why so many of our people are living shorter lives than they should?

Climate Change and Tax Policies

During his speech tonight, Trump did not have one word to say about how we are going to address the planetary crisis of climate change. The last ten years, as most Americans know, have been the warmest ever recorded, and extreme weather disturbances and natural disasters have been taking place all over the world, from California to India, across Europe to North Carolina. And yet, not surprisingly, Trump had nothing to say about climate change except, I guess, drill, baby, drill. Well, that’s going to help a whole lot.

And let’s be clear, not only did Trump fail to talk about some of the most important issues facing the working class of America, but the solutions, in quote, he proposed would only make a bad situation even worse. Yep, I did hear Trump talk tonight about some tax breaks for working families in terms of not taxing tips, not taxing Social Security, and not taxing overtime. Fine. But that is Trump change compared to the benefits he’s going to give to the 1%, and it doesn’t tell the whole story about his tax policies.

According to a recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, if all of Trump’s so-called America First policies are enacted, including his tariffs, which he spoke a lot about tonight, the bottom 95% of Americans will see their taxes go up, while the richest 5% in our country will see their taxes go down, way down.

Tonight, in so many words, Trump urged Congress to pass his big, beautiful budget. Do you know what’s really in it? This budget would cut Medicaid by 880 billion dollars. Oh, I guess Trump forgot to talk about that. 880 billion dollar cut in Medicaid. According to one estimate, it means that up to 36 million Americans, including millions of children, would be thrown off the health insurance they have. Hey, a 90-minute speech tonight, not one word about throwing millions of kids off of the health insurance they have. When you cut Medicaid drastically, it means that nursing homes that receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid will either have to shut down, lay off workers, or significantly scale back the services they provide seniors. Yeah, I didn’t hear that from Trump tonight either. It would be a devastating blow, these cuts to Medicaid, for the 32 million Americans who get their health care at community health centers.

And it’s not just Medicaid that Trump’s budget would cut. It would also cut nutrition assistance by at least 230 billion. I want you to think about that for a moment, and can you imagine? The billionaire class, people who can support their families, some of these guys have tens of billions of dollars, support their families for the next 10 generations, 50 generations. People who live in incredible opulence, people who own their own jet planes, they own their own private islands, they own their own spaceships, trying to get tax breaks by taking food out of the mouths of low-income kids. That truly is disgusting. What we are seeing is the Robert Hood principle in reverse, taking from the poor and giving to the rich and the very, very rich.

Federal Job Cuts and Foreign Policy

And here is something else Trump has been doing. For the past several weeks, he and his good friend Elon Musk, who was up there in the audience tonight, have been throwing hundreds of thousands of federal employees off their jobs. Now, I know some of you are saying, well that’s too bad, you know, but that’s the federal government. Not me, you know, it’s not me, it’s just those guys who work for the federal government. But I want you to think about this. Think about it for a moment. If Musk and his friends can arbitrarily throw federal workers out on the street today, what do you think that Musk and his fellow billionaires will be doing tomorrow when artificial intelligence and robotics explode in this country? Do you think they’ll give a damn about you and your families? No, they will treat you exactly the way they’re treating federal employees today. You will be out on the street as well.

But it’s not only absurd domestic policies that we’ve got to fight. For the first time in our 250 year history, we have a president who is turning his back on democracy and allying us with authoritarianism. No, we must not abandon the people of Ukraine who were invaded by the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. We must always stand for democracy, not dictatorship.

Sanders’ Vision for America’s Future

Let me be very clear. Regardless of where Trump is taking this country, here’s what I think and what I believe the American people want us to do. They want us to end a corrupt campaign finance system. Well gee, golly gee, I didn’t hear Mr. Trump talk about that tonight. A corrupt campaign finance system which allows a handful of billionaires to buy elections. It is beyond crazy that someone like Elon Musk can contribute over 270 million dollars to help get Trump elected and then he gets to run the government. It is absurd that any member of Congress who stands up to Netanyahu’s brutal war in Gaza can expect to be opposed by millions of dollars in campaign contributions coming from AIPAC. The American people want us to end this disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and move to the public funding of elections. Democracy is supposed to be about one person, one vote, not billionaires buying the political candidates of their choice.

And further, no we should not be giving tax breaks to billionaires. That’s not what we should be doing. We must demand that the wealthiest people in this country start paying their fair share of taxes. We must raise the federal minimum wage of seven and a quarter an hour to a living wage of at least seventeen dollars an hour. We must make it easier for workers to join trade unions, grow the union movement, and prevent corporations from violating labor laws with impunity by passing the PRO Act, legislation that I will be introducing tomorrow.

No, we are not going to cut Social Security. Quite the contrary. We must expand Social Security benefits and extend insolvency for the next 75 years by scrapping the cap that allows a billionaire to pay the same amount into Social Security as a truck driver. Too many, too many of our seniors are hurting today for us to be talking about cutting Social Security. Over 20% seniors in this country living on $15,000 a year or less.

Further, instead of making massive cuts to Medicaid, we must join every other major country in guaranteeing health care to all of our people through a Medicare for All single-payer program. We must also take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. Get them to charge us what they charge other countries, reducing prescription drug prices by 50%.

And at a time of a terrible housing crisis in Vermont and in every area of our country, we must build at least 4 million units of low-income and affordable housing, stop corporate landlords from jacking up rent prices, and establish a cap on rent. In a competitive global economy, we need the best educated workforce in the world. All of our young people must have the ability to get a higher education by making public colleges, trade schools, and universities tuition-free and canceling student debt.

Yes, we can create millions of good-paying jobs by combating climate change and moving our energy system away from fossil fuels and into sustainable energy. You know, I heard a lot of talk about freedom tonight from Mr. Trump. Well, in a free society, we must absolutely guarantee that it is the women of America who control their own bodies, not the local, state, or federal governments.

A Call to Action

Now I know, because I’ve heard from many of you, that there are a lot of people out there who are feeling angry and frustrated at what’s going on here in Washington, DC. And some of you may feel a bit hopeless. So let me say this, at this particular moment in history, despair is not an option. Giving up is not acceptable. And none of us have the privilege of hiding under the covers. The stakes are just too high.

Let us never forget, real change only occurs when ordinary people stand up by the millions against oppression and injustice and fight back. That is the history of the founding of our nation, when brave men and women took on the mighty, invincible British Empire. It is the history of the abolitionist movement, the history of the labor movement, the history of the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement, and the gay rights movement.

Yes, I know, the oligarchs are enormously powerful. I deal with them every day. I know that. Yes, they have endless amounts of money. Yes, they control our economy and they own much of the media. They have enormous influence over our political system. But from the bottom of my heart, I am convinced that they can be beaten. If we stand together and not let them divide us up by the color of our skin, or where we were born, or our religion, or the language we speak, or our sexual orientation, if we bring our people together around an agenda that works for the many and not just the few, there is nothing in the world that can stop us. We can win. We will win. Let us go forward together. Thank you all very much.

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