Congressman Eliot L. Engel Responds to Trump State of the Union Address

  “Filled with baseless rhetoric and self-promotion, the President failed to deliver anything other than delusions of grandeur tonight. He claimed this speech would bring people together. Unsurprisingly, it fell well short. His swipes at the Mueller investigation, attacks on Democratic oversight and a woman’s right to choose, his commitment to radical conservative principles, and continued obsession with his faux border crisis undermined any real talk of unity.

“Once again tonight, the President made outlandish claims about crime in an attempt to scare people into thinking his ridiculous border wall is necessary. But the American people are too smart for that, as poll after poll has shown. Additional resources for our stressed ports of entry, more judges to handle asylum cases, advanced technology to monitor border crossings—Democrats support and have already proposed funding for these ideas. But we will not support a failed campaign promise that the President is using to stir up his base.

“While the President continues to harp on the border, he ignores the true crises facing our country: climate change, gun violence, and student loan debt, just to name a few. His lack of action will affect future generations, as it will be our children, and our children’s children, who pay the steep price for his failure to act.

“The rest of the State of the Union was littered with factual inaccuracies and lacked substantive policy measures. It was, to be sure, a Trump speech. The President made claims about the economy that aren’t supported by any real data, and had no issue taking credit for a lot of the work done by his predecessor, President Obama.

“The President gave lip service to issues like lowering the cost of prescription drugs, health care, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, and protecting American workers. But Democrats have actually put forth plans that the President could have supported at any point in the last 2 years to deal with those issues. He did not. In fact, he spent most of his time trying to take health care away from people, while harming the middle-class with his trade war, shameful tax scam, and government shutdown.

  

“If the President’s goal was to unite a divided country tonight, he failed. If he was hoping to build any support for his racist immigration and border policies, he failed. If he was looking to reset his agenda in light of a House with a Democratic majority, he failed. Tonight’s speech was just more of the same.”