[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 24 (Wednesday, February 5, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S872-S873]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

  Mr. SCHUMER. Madam President, I will speak later this afternoon, at 
about 3:30--prior to the vote on the Articles of Impeachment--about 
impeachment, but this morning, I would like to briefly respond to 
President Trump's third State of the Union Address. It was a sad moment 
for democracy.
  The President's speech last night was much more like a Trump rally 
than a speech a true leader would give. It was demagogic, undignified, 
highly partisan, and, in too many places, just untruthful. Instead of a 
dignified President, we had some combination of a pep rally leader, a 
reality show host, and a carnival barker. That is not what Presidents 
are.
  President Trump took credit for inheriting an economy that has been 
growing at about the same pace over the last 10 years. The bottom line 
is, during the last 3 years of the Obama administration, more jobs were 
created than under these 3 years of the Trump administration. Yet he 
can't resist digging at the past President even though the past 
President's economic number was better than his.
  He boasted about how many manufacturing jobs he has created. 
Manufacturing jobs have gone down, in part, because of the President's 
trade policies for 5 months late last year. There was a 5-month-long 
recession last year. Farmers are struggling mightily. Farm income is 
way down. Bankruptcies are the highest they have been in 8 years. Crop 
prices are dwindling, and markets may never recover from the damage of 
the President's trade war as so many contracts for soybeans and other 
goods have gone to Argentina and Brazil. These are not 1-year 
contracts; these are long-term contracts.
  The President talked at length about healthcare and claimed--
amazingly at one point--he will fight to protect patients with 
preexisting conditions. This President just lies--just lies. He is in 
court right now, trying to undo the protections for preexisting 
conditions. At the same time, he says he wants to do it, and all the 
Republicans get up

[[Page S873]]

and cheer. His administration is working as hard as it can to take down 
the law that guarantees protections for preexisting conditions. The 
claim is not partly true; it is not half true; it is not misleading. It 
is flatly, objectively, unequivocally false. It reads on my notes 
``false.'' Let's call it for what it is--it is a lie.
  In 3 years, President Trump has done everything imaginable to 
undermine Americans' healthcare. He is even hoping to drag out the 
resolution of the lawsuit past the next election. If President Trump 
were truly interested in shoring up protections for people with 
preexisting conditions, he would drop this lawsuit now. Then he would 
be doing something, not just talking and having his actions totally 
contradict his words. Until the President drops his lawsuit, when he 
says he cares about Americans' healthcare, he is talking out of both 
sides of his mouth.
  When he talks about being the blue-collar President, he doesn't 
understand blue-collar families. It is true that wages went up 3 
percent. If you are making $50,000 a year, that is a good salary. By my 
calculation, that is about $30 a week. When you get a medical bill of 
$4,000 and your deductible is $5,000, when your car has an accident and 
it is going to cost you $3,000 or $4,000 to fix it and you don't have 
that money, the $30 a week doesn't mean much.
  When asked, ``Is it easier for you to pay your bills today or the day 
Trump became President?'' they say it is harder to pay their bills 
today. That is what working families care about, getting their costs 
down--their college costs, their education costs, their healthcare 
costs, their automobile and infrastructure costs--not these vaunted 
Wall Street statistics that the financial leaders look at and think: 
Oh, we are great.
  They are great. Their 3-percent increase in income--and it has been 
greater--puts a lot of money in their pockets. Working people don't 
feel any better--they feel worse--because Donald Trump always sides 
with the special interests when it comes to things that affect working 
families, like health care, like drug costs, like college.
  In so many other areas, the President's claims were just not true. He 
claimed he has gotten tough on China. He sold out to China a month ago. 
Everyone knows that. Because he has hurt the farmers so badly, the bulk 
of what happened in the Chinese agreement was for them to purchase some 
soybeans. We don't even know if that will happen, but it didn't get at 
the real ways China hurts us.
  He spoke about the desire for a bipartisan infrastructure bill. We 
Senate Democrats put together a $1 trillion bill 3 years ago, and the 
President hasn't shown any interest in discussing it. In fact, when 
Speaker Pelosi and I went to visit him about infrastructure, he walked 
out.
  This is typical of Donald Trump. In his speech, he bragged about all 
of these things he wants to do or is doing, but his actions belie his 
words. Maybe the best metaphor was his claim to bring democracy to 
Venezuela. There was a big policy there. It flopped. If the policy were 
working, Juan Guaido wouldn't have been in the balcony here. He would 
have been in Venezuela. He would have been sitting in the President's 
palace or at least have been waging a fight to win. He was here--and 
the President brags about his Venezuela policy? Give us a break.
  He hasn't brought an end to the Maduro regime. The Maduro regime is 
more powerful today and more entrenched today than it was when the 
President began his anti-Maduro fight--the same thing with North Korea, 
the same thing with China, the same thing with Russia, the same thing 
with Syria.
  The fact is, when President Trump gets over an hour to speak, the 
number of mistruths, mischaracterizations, exaggerations, and 
contradictions is breathtaking. No other President comes close. The old 
expression says: ``Watch what I do, not what I say.''
  What the President does will be revealed on Monday in his budget. 
That is what he wants to do. If past is prologue, almost everything in 
that budget will contradict what he will have said in his speech. In 
the past, he has cut money for healthcare, cut money for medical 
research, cut money for infrastructure, cut money for education, cut 
money to help kids with college--every one of those things.
  Ladies and gentlemen, I have faith in the American people. They will 
not be fooled. They are used to it. They can tell a little show here--a 
nonreality show--when they see one. They know it is a show. It is done 
for their amusement, for their titillation, but it doesn't improve 
America. Working people are not happy. The middle class is struggling 
to stay in the middle class, and those struggling to get to the middle 
class find it harder to get there. Their path is steeper.
  Far more than the President's speech, the President's budget is what 
truly reveals his priorities. The budget will be the truth serum, and 
in a few days, the American people will see how many of the President's 
words here are reality. I expect very few will be.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that following 
my oral remarks that my more extensive, written remarks that I have 
prepared be printed in the Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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