is through the concept of the big lie and boy did we hear that tonight you say something that is grossly false say it over and over again and have right-wing social media blasted out endless times until people actually believe it and then rather than address the real issues facing the American people the struggles that the American people are facing we find ourselves wasting endless amounts of time discussing Trump's absurdities let me just give you a very few examples Trump claimed that the 2020 election was stolen from him and that he won by a landslide remember
that a lie Trump claimed that the January 6th Insurrection was a day of love a lie Trump has claimed that millions of undocumented people voted and do vote in American elections a lie Trump has claimed that climate change is a hoax originating in China a lie Trump has claimed that Ukraine started the horrific war with Russia a lie and tonight just tonight Trump claimed that millions of dead people between the ages of 360 I guess were collecting Social Security checks and that is an outrageous lie intended to lay the groundwork for cuts to Social Security
and dismantling the most successful and popular government program in history so let's be clear about that well over 99% of Social Security checks are going out to people who earned those checks 70 million Americans nobody nobody who is 150 years old or 200 years old or 300 years old is receiving Social Security checks and on and on the lies go now the purpose of all of this lying is not just to push his hateful right-wing ideology 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 Al 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 and I will tell you exactly why Trump had very little to say about the real crisis facing the working class of this country think back six weeks ago when Trump was inaugurated for his second term as president just 6 weeks ago standing right behind them 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 capital 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 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 60% 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 child care 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 cost 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 60% of our people or the enormous stress that they are living under 90 minutes speech
not one word about the economic reality facing American workers 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 why we pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs sometimes 10 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 Mr President we have nearly 800,000 Americans who are homeless over 20 million of
our people spend more than half their limited income on housing we have a major housing crisis in America everyone knows it apparently accept 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 them at its inauguration now own more wealth than the bottom half of our Society 170 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 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 it's the why so many of our people are living shorter
lives than they should 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 10 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 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 oh I guess Trump forgot to talk about that $880 billion cut in Medicade 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 90minut speeech 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 SE GE 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 now I want you to think about that for a moment and can you imagine the billionaire class people who can support their fam 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 lowincome kids that truly is disgusting what we are seeing is the Robinhood principle in Reverse taking from the poor and giving to the rich and the very very rich 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 uh not me
you know it's not me it's just those guys that 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 is not only absurd domestic policies that we've got to fight for the first time in our 250e 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 dictat ship 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 G I didn't hear Mr Trump talk about that tonight a corrupt campaign Finance system which allows a handful of billionaires to buy a elections it is beyond crazy that someone like Elon Musk can contribute over 270 million 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 APAC 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 s and a quarter an hour to a living wage of at least $17 an hour we must make it easier for workers to join
trade unions grow the union movement and prevent corporations from violating label laws with impunity by passing the proact legislation that I will be introducing tomorrow no we have not going to cut Social Security quite the contrary we must expand Social Security benefits and extend its solvency 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
$155,000 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 lowincome 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 cancelling 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 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 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 Orient ation if we bring our people together around an agenda that works for the many and not just a 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
