Trump is ‘making your life harder’: Democrat Abigail Spanberger argues in State of the Union response
Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger has led the Democratic Party’s response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address, in which she focused on Americans’ affordability concerns.
The former congresswoman and ex-CIA officer flipped the Republican-held governorship by a double-digit margin in November, promising to lower the cost of living for Virginians.
“We did not hear the truth from our president,” Spanberger said in her speech from Colonial Williamsburg, a history museum in Virginia, Tuesday night shortly after Trump’s record-breaking long speech.
“As I campaigned for governor last year, I traveled to every corner of Virginia and I heard the same pressing concern everywhere — costs are too high,” she added.
Spanberger said Trump and Republicans are “Making your life harder. They’re making your life more expensive. They’re even making it more difficult to see a doctor,” referring to the healthcare cuts in the president’s One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.
Trump spoke highly about the current economy as he addressed the joint session of Congress, calling his second presidency a “golden age of America.”
“Today, our border is secure. Our spirit is restored. Inflation is plummeting. Incomes are rising fast. The roaring economy is roaring like never before, and our enemies are scared,” Trump said.
During her rebuttal, Spanberger said Trump “offered no real solutions to our nation’s pressing challenges, so many of which he is actively making worse,” during his State of the Union address.
Spanberger, Virginia’s first female governor, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist, and Democratic New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill beat their Republican opponents on the message of affordability last fall.
Since then, Trump has been trying to convince voters of his economic agenda. But according to an AP-NORC poll from earlier this month, the president still has work to do. Just 39 percent of respondents said they approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 59 percent disapprove.
About half of House and Senate Democrats chose to skip Trump’s speech altogether, according to Axios. But some women lawmakers decided to attend wearing white, the color of the women’s suffrage movement. The choice for Trump’s critics to wear white to the State of the Union started during his first presidency.
During his speech, some Democrats did stand in support after Trump asked Congress to pass a bill to ban lawmakers from stock trading, as observed by The Independent’s Eric Garcia. But others yelled about Trump being corrupt.
House Republicans have advanced a bill that would place some restrictions on Congressional stock trading but Democrats don’t believe it goes far enough, according to The New York Times. The Trump family has generated about $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency during his second term, a Bloomberg analysis found.
Democratic Congresswomen Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan heckled the president when he spoke about his immigration crackdown at the State of the Union.
