Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont had a lot to say after walking out of President Donald Trump‘s speech.
Trump’s address at Tuesday night’s joint session of Congress took almost two-hours to deliver, the longest of its kind in modern U.S. history. It included interruptions from heckling.
Trump talked aout the firing of tens of thousands of federal workers; offered an update after publicly scolding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office; and hyped the trade war launched against China, Mexico and Canada.
Trump also praised Elon Musk‘s work with the Department of Government Efficiency, which since Inauguration Day has bulldozed through scores of different federal agencies looking for opportunities to save federal dollars.
However, out of everything Trump talked about, Sanders said that the president did not touch on the real issues facing working-class families in this country.
Bernie Sanders response to Trump
In a video posted online, Sanders began his response by refuting what he called Trump’s most damaging lie during his speech: that being the claims about centuries-old dead people being sent Social Security checks, denying the the president’s claim outright and claiming that he is setting up for an attack on the Social Security program.
“Well over 99% of Social Security checks are going out to people who earned those checks – 70 million people,” Sanders said. “Nobody who is 150 years old or 200 years old or 300 years old is receiving Social Security checks.”
The Vermont senator also said that the president did not broach more sweeping struggles many Americans are facing today because he packed his office and inner circle with some of the richest people in the world like Musk.
“They’re not hiding it,” Sanders said. “The Trump administration is a government of the billionaire class, by the billionaire class and for the billionaire class.”
Sanders also admonished Trump’s plea to Congress to pass his budget, which the senator said contains a sizable cut to Medicaid that would lead to 36 million Americans being thrown off of the program.
“It means that nursing homes that receive two-thirds of their funding from Medicaid would either have to shut down, lay off workers or significantly scale back the services they provide seniors,” Sanders said.
Sanders called on the American people to unite in the face of oligarchical oppression.
“We will win,” Sanders said. “Let’s go forward together.”
How many billionaires in Trump’s cabinet?
President Donald Trump has assembled the wealthiest presidential administration in modern history, with at least 13 billionaires .
They include a wrestling magnate, a private space pioneer, a New York real estate developer, the heir to a small appliance empire, and the wealthiest man on the planet — with several being donors and close personal friends of the incoming president.
In total, the combined net worth of the wealthiest members of his administration could surpass $460 billion, including Department of Government Efficiency co-head Elon Musk — whose net worth of more than $400 billion exceeds the GDP of mid-sized countries. Since Dec 2024, Musk’s net worth went down 0ver $120 billion
USA Today